Kiwanis Club awards first grants of the year

+ Kiwanis Club awards first grants of the year
The Longboat Key Kiwanis Foundation awarded its first grants for the 2014 season at its March 20 breakfast meeting at the Longboat Key Club’s Tavern & Whiskey Bar.

The foundation awarded three $5,000 grants to three separate organizations.

Kate Honea, principal dancer at the Sarasota Ballet, accepted the grant for the ballet’s Dance: The Next Generation project; Doug Staley, program director for the Child Protection Center of Sarasota County, accepted a grant in support of its Child and Families Supervised Visitation Program; and Beverly Sutton, director of the Christ Church of Longboat Key Reading Buddies Program, accepted a grant in conjunction with the United Community Neighborhood Learning Center, better known as the 13th Avenue Dream Center, to support the Reading Recovery Program for at-risk children in kindergarten through third grade.

Additional grants will be announced in the coming weeks. This year, the Kiwanis Club will offer approximately a dozen organizations grants of $500 to $5,000 based on their service to children in need.

Organizations must be located in Sarasota or Manatee counties and have a Kiwanis member as a sponsor.