Kids win big at this year's Gourmet Lawn Party

The Longboat Key Kiwanis Club distributed a record 1,100 tickets to this year’s Longboat Key Gourmet Lawn Party. It has at least $95,000 in the bank from the event and another $5,000 or $6,000 to collect, which, after expenses, will generate more than $65,000 for local children’s charities and scholarships — another record.

“How did we manage that?” asked Kiwanis Club President Armando Linde at the group’s Dec. 11 breakfast meeting. “We had a platoon of volunteers.”

Linde said the club had at least 30 to 35 volunteers at the event — led by Lawn Party Chairman Michael Garey, whom Linde described as the “platoon leader.”

“A platoon leader can set low expectations to exceed them or set high expectations as a challenge,” Linde said. “Our platoon leader actually set high expectations that were exceeded.”

Garey spoke at the end of the meeting and gave credit to sponsors along with other volunteers and organizers, including Corey Schaul, who single-handedly raised $27,000 by signing up sponsors. Garey cited this year’s Lawn Party tagline, “Where kids win big.”

“This year, the kids won big,” he said.

But someone else won big as well at this year’s Lawn Party: Riana Rawson, who won the $20,000 cash grand prize in the Longboat Key Kiwanis Foundation’s raffle, and accepted her check at the Dec. 11 meeting.

Rawson isn’t going to Disney World with her winnings; she is taking her two nieces and sister to SeaWorld instead.

“This is such a blessing in my life and my family’s life,” Rawson said.

She purchased her ticket from John Wild (who estimates he has sold at least 800 Kiwanis raffle tickets over the years) the day before the Dec. 6 event after he stopped by Go Touch Down Travel and Tour’s St. Armands office, where Rawson is branch manager, and asked her to buy a ticket.

“I’m so grateful that I didn’t hesitate,” Rawson said of the $100 purchase. “It’s the first time in my life that I’ve won anything.”

Although Rawson is looking forward to the SeaWorld trip, she will also use the money for a more important purpose: She has been saving for more than two years to sponsor her parents, who live in her native South Africa, to immigrate to the United States.

“This is going to make that possible,” Rawson said.

Also at Thursday’s meeting, the club presented past president Richard Crawford with the Presidential Zeller Award for his contributions to the group’s success. He is the fourth Longboat Kiwanian to receive the honor.

The club becomes eligible to honor one of its members with the Zeller Award by raising at least $1,250 toward the Eliminate Project, a Kiwanis International and UNICEF effort that aims to eradicate maternal and neonatal tetanus.

Year in review
Here’s a look at what the Longboat Key Kiwanis Club accomplished in 2014:

$109,000 in grants and scholarships awarded — to benefit local children’s charities and students.

37 scholarships — awarded to Sarasota and Manatee county students, totaling more than $66,000, more than double the $32,000 in scholarships the group awarded in 2013.

28 restaurants, 15 sponsors — at this year’s Longboat Key Gourmet Lawn Party

27 days of bell-ringing — at Longboat Key Publix, to benefit the Salvation Army

7 — local children’s charities that received grants this year from the Kiwanis Club

No. 5 — The Longboat Key Kiwanis Club’s rank out of the 255 Kiwanis clubs in Florida in terms of growth by percentage