Support your passion project through Giving Challenge 2026

Local organizations are preparing for the fundraising event presented by the Community Foundation of Sarasota County.

By Dana Kampa
| 5:00 a.m. April 8, 2026

Students in Kirsten Hazelton's 2nd-grade class at Southside Elementary School used their magnifying glasses to watch their freshly released ladybugs get to work patrolling their vegetable garden at the school.

Longboat Key
Neighbors

Through an online, 24-hour-only event, the Community Foundation of Sarasota County is hoping to facilitate a major boost to area organizations. Local groups, including the Longboat Key Garden Club and others, are preparing for the 2026 Giving Challenge. It all begins at noon on April 15.

This will be the 10th year the Community Foundation has organized the biennial event. In 2024, the challenge raised $17.2 million to benefit 724 nonprofit organizations, according to a foundation press release.

The garden club is participating in the challenge for the first time this year.

Club members recently toured the classroom-run gardens at Southside Elementary School and others to gain a better understanding of how the funds they help raise will be put to use.

Teacher Kirsten Hazelton said her 2nd-graders at Southside Elementary love seeing vegetables like cherry tomatoes grow in their own patch of the school garden. She gets to teach hands-on lessons on the science of photosynthesis and related topics while they get the chance to be culinary adventurers.

Tour members got to see one second grade class, led by teacher Kristen Hazelton, release 300 ladybugs into the gardens that sunny afternoon. The little scarlet beetles are well-known garden-boosting bugs that can help control outbreaks of harmful pests like aphids.

The little critters also gave the elementary schoolers an exciting, interactive glimpse into the natural world of agriculture.

The garden club helps support vegetable gardens in four Sarasota elementary schools. Teachers use the gardens to teach their students about science and nutrition.

Hazelton listed numerous benefits of the hands-on learning for her pupils. They get to track the plants' growth, gaining a strong understanding of concepts like photosynthesis, and they venture outside their culinary comfort zones to try new vegetables they grew themselves.

"Your grant gave the opportunity to build this," tour guide Lindsey Conrad told garden club members Diane Blake and Debbie Wilson as they walked among the garden beds.

The students also learn about native Floridian flowers via the butterfly garden.

About 80 parent volunteers help make the garden projects possible, Conrad said. However, there are still costs associated with installing the plant beds, filling them with nutrient-rich soil, getting seeds and seedlings and other maintenance throughout the growing season.

"With the garden club's support, we've been able to get high-quality soil, and it has made an absolute world of difference in terms of what we get," Conrad said. "We used to throw more fertilizer in and irrigate as much as possible, but you can only revamp the soil through so many grow seasons. That grant has allowed us, every year, to take off the top half of soil, which we now add to our butterfly garden."

The Longboat Key Garden Club's fundraising efforts will go even further this year with backing from the Patterson Foundation, which has pledged to 100% match of all donations between $25 and $100 per donor per organization.

Teacher Kirsten Hazelton's 2nd-grade class at Southside Elementary School shows touring members of the Longboat Key Garden Club how their patch in the school vegetable garden is progressing. The garden club is focusing its fundraising efforts on supporting these school gardens with the upcoming Giving Challenge on April 15.

There are about 750 nonprofits participating this year. Those with Longboat Key ties include the National League of American Pen Women - Sarasota Branch, which is fundraising for its annual Launching Leaders in the Arts program to support college-bound high school seniors in Manatee and Sarasota County public schools.

Also getting involved this year is the Rotary LBK Charitable Fund Inc, the 501(c)(3) arm of the Rotary Club of Longboat Key that supports community service projects.

Three of their main focuses for the drive are veteran services, environmental stewardship and youth engagement.

The club highlighted its close ties with the town, Ringling College of Art and Design, Longboat Key Turtle Watch, Save Our Seabirds, Mote Marine Laboratories and other partners "to develop an environmental stewardship and educational program with a focus on the coastal ecology sustainability challenges faced by Florida's Suncoast region."

Contributions to the charitable nonprofits are 100% tax deductible.

To learn more about what organizations are participating and how to get involved, visit GivingChallenge.org.

author

Dana Kampa

Dana Kampa is the Longboat Key neighbors reporter for the Observer. She first ventured into journalism in her home state of Wisconsin, going on to report community stories everywhere from the snowy mountains of Washington State to the sunny shores of the Caribbean. She has been a writer and photographer for more than a decade, covering what matters most to readers.