Christ Church of Longboat Key presents checks to supported organizations

Leaders from four local nonprofits stopped by Christ Church of Longboat Key on March 19 and left with doughnuts, orange juice and checks. 

Christ Church members Jerry Fox, Sally Rauch and Mike Gardiner invited the leaders of Hope Seeds, Harvest House, Turning Points and Our Daily Bread to the church for breakfast and to pick up the donations awarded to each group via grant applications. An anonymous church member donated nearly $100,000 to the church, which was divided into grants for four organizations supported by Christ Church ministries. Organizations submitted a grant proposal to explain what they wanted to do or expand on with the money. 

"We support them on a regular, ongoing basis," Fox said. "We focused on the areas of homelessness and hunger. We thought given the pandemic that would be a good thing to do." 

Harvest House, which provides social services, neighborhood revitalization and housing assistance, was awarded $35,000 for a new youth center, while food pantry Our Daily Bread got $25,000 to retrofit a house for food storage. Turning Points, which provides homeless assistance in Bradenton, got $20,000 for a new medical and dental assistant to expand the organization's free services and Hope Seeds, which packs and sends out seeds to foster long-term nutrition, got $13,000 to expand their program to the Bahamas to help with hunger relief after storms thrashed the country.