- December 13, 2025
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On a Wednesday afternoon in early September, a group of about 10 people gathered in a side room at the Gecko’s Grill & Pub on Clark Road in Sarasota.
It was a mostly older group — one of those in the crowd was marking her 90th birthday. But there were a couple of young people mixed in as well.
The group talked strategy, collected money, sang Happy Birthday, ate lunch and planned for the rest of the year. And for what they lacked in size, they made up for in impact.
The meeting was one of two monthly gatherings of the Siesta Key Kiwanis Club. (Or if you prefer to refer to it by what their nametags say: It was one of two monthly gatherings of the “Mighty” Siesta Key Kiwanis Club.)
“Our mission is one child, one community at a time,” says Mary-Lynn Desjarlais, a Sarasota attorney and the Siesta Key club’s incoming president. “So, if we can change the life of one child, we have done our job.”
The local service club carries the Siesta Key name, though its work is not limited by geography, with its giving spread out across the area.
One reason for that is its origins.
Desjarlais says about 10 years ago there were two local clubs, the Kiwanis Club of South Sarasota and the Kiwanis Club of Siesta Key. She belonged to the South Sarasota club, where half its members were older than 90. The members saw the direction the club was headed and formed a committee to discuss a merger.
After they “dated for a year” the combined clubs settled on the Siesta Key name because it had better name recognition outside Sarasota County.
Today, the Siesta Key club has 31 members who each pay about $185 in dues a year. That money pays for a website, the room fee at Gecko’s, mailings and dues to the international Kiwanis organization. The members also donate time and money for the causes the group supports and its events.
The club’s key mission is literacy, and at that Wednesday afternoon meeting there was a lot of talk about My Little Libraries and book drives for two local schools — Wilkinson Elementary and Brentwood Elementary in Sarasota County — the club has “adopted” and a preschool program.
The club’s signature project, according to a strategy document for 2025-’26 is Read, Learn, Dream Sarasota.
The program is a free pre-K kids book group that, with the help of parents, is designed to promote a love of books and reading among children. The project was started in 2022 with 98 children in six classrooms at three schools. Today, RLDS provides books to 217 children and 17 teachers in 17 classrooms at seven schools.
By the end of this school year, it will have placed over 5,700 books into pre-K children’s homes, the Siesta Key club says in the program description.
The cost is $70 per child per school year. But parents and schools pay nothing. The club raises money to cover the costs through a sponsorship program, other fundraising and grants.
This initiative, Desjarlais writes in a follow up email, helps preschoolers to “build home libraries and foster a lifelong love of reading.”
But the club’s activities aren’t limited to just literacy programs.
As lunch was served at the meeting, a representative from Meals on Wheels of Sarasota gave a presentation of how the program works, whom it helps and how club members can help.
There were discussions about a breakfast with Santa and a holiday gift giving program for elementary school students. The club also collects and donates food so families can have a Thanksgiving meal.
There was even talk at the meeting about getting together for a holiday party. But that won’t happen until January because everyone is so tied up with other club-related projects.
Chief among those projects is the holiday gift giving program — Holiday Heroes.
The club sponsors about 80 children, Desjarlais says, and members have a $40 per child price limit.
Who is getting the gifts remains anonymous. What the club tries to do is make sure everyone in the family gets a gift on Christmas morning. These families, often identified by school counselors, fill out a questionnaire sharing what they’d like, if the gift is for a girl or a boy, what sizes they are, that sort of thing.
Several club members during the discussion said the sad reality is how many kids ask for food.
While other kids have limitless dreams of what Santa can stuff under a crowded tree, a lot of the kids the Siesta Key Kiwanis help ask for something like Takis, a simple and popular spicy tortilla chips snack.
It breaks your heart, the members say, but this may be their only chance to get something others grab off a store shelf without a second thought.
“There’s such a need,” Desjarlais says in an area that many people see as affluent. “If you look at the Title 1 elementary schools, these are children who are on free and reduced lunch. In wealthy Sarasota, it’s amazing how many children live at or below the poverty line.”
