- March 13, 2026
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Months ago, Yvette Resto was asked to sit and talk during a visit to the library as preparations for Margie's Market, a new free community market in Newtown, were under way.
Her input was that the community was looking for a one-stop shop for needed items.
As the market held its grand opening on March 10, she took her first look inside at the space operated by All Faiths Food Bank inside Newtown's Goodwill Manasota Job Connection Center.
Her reaction was that it was "way beyond whatever I thought or imagined."
She said in many cases when visiting a food bank, the experience involves a deep freezer or items simply tossed in a car. Instead, Margie's Market was well-organized like a grocery store.
"It makes you feel like people have the things that you desire and things that you want, and not just pick out things that they give you on a regular basis, but to be able to really come in and see brand name healthy foods," she said.
The new market aims to provide access to fresh food alongside employment and support services for the Newtown neighborhood, one of Sarasota's most historically under-resourced areas.
The market's first year of operating expenses was funded by a grant of $700,468 from the Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation, while an anonymous donor also paid for the buildout and preparation of the space.
According to Nelle Miller, president and CEO of All Faiths Food Bank, the Newtown area demonstrated a significant need for services and had been termed a "food desert" in the organization's analyses.
"When we looked at the population in this general area, within about a mile radius, there are probably around 5,000 households that could use help," she said.
She said they were fortunate to form a partnership with Goodwill Manasota in order to creating a space that was within walking distance for the community.
However, she said it was important to ensure that it met all of the Newtown community's specific needs, and said spaces that have tried to impose their ideas on the community, rather than taking in its feedback, have not succeeded in the past.
"I needed to put what we're being told they want, because it's not about us," she said. "We have the ability to give the neighbors anything within reason that they want, so it took a lot of listening and a lot of exploration, and a lot of negotiating, and finding employees to work here who come from the community."
According to Donn Githens, the president and CEO of Goodwill Industries-Manasota, Inc., said the job center in Newtown is the second Goodwill center in terms of the volume of visitors.
He said the community it serves is in need of support both for finding jobs, and for obtaining better jobs.
He notes that addition to the job connection program, visitors can find the veteran services team within that program, computers for performing job searches and taking online training, and community partners including The Multicultural Health Institute.
"With the space we had here, we were able to leverage the footprint for what All Faiths Food Bank's needs were," he said.
Resto says she wants to see more services coming to the area in the future.
"I'm envisioning even bigger," she said. "I'm looking at clothing. I'm looking at a lot of different things to help with housing, to help make people know that there's a place that they can come to, to better their lives for this community," she said.
She said if Newtown's community can work together, then others will be able to as well.
