A conversation with Suzy Brenner

At 10 a.m. every Thursday, Suzy Brenner dances her way into Aging in Paradise to lead a beginner Zumba class. For the next 45 minutes, she leads participants in fast-paced dances, the sound of the music mixing with laughter.

Since last summer, Brenner, 49, has been balancing Zumba with her role as communications specialist for the center. As of April 17, Brenner added one more duty to her resume. She is the new executive director of Aging in Paradise, following Donna Dunio’s retirement.

We sat down with Brenner and talked about her goals, transition plans and favorite parts of the resource center. (Zumba enthusiasts, don’t worry, she plans to keep teaching.)

To what are you most looking forward?

I think the potential. Donna managed in just 3 1/2 years to make this into a really active resource center. And now, with that groundwork in place, we can do a little analysis, look back at the last couple of years, see what’s been really popular, what hasn’t been as popular, look at some of the areas that we’ve maybe been neglecting, some programming and really set up a schedule for next year. 

When an organization is new, I think it’s hard to get people on board — good speakers and good workshops — because they’ve never heard of you. They don’t know what you can do, but now that we’re really pretty well-known in the community, including Bradenton and Sarasota, we’re able to get some really strong panels of people.

What are some goals you have?

One of the main things that we offer here is vetted referrals, and that’s for any kind of service, whether it’s home health care or dog-walking. It’s been really hard to keep that list up to date. 

One of our things we’re really going to focus on in the off-season is getting that up to date because as a resource center that’s not only for people who live here, but people who come for a couple of weeks,  if they have some kind of emergency or non-emergency, they just want some good advice to come to a nonprofit, noncommercial organization to get good referrals. It’s important. So that’s definitely one of our big goals, and also to make sure that for our busy season next year, we have a really well-rounded program. 

I actually felt that we didn’t have enough fun stuff these past few months, so we’re looking into things like doing an art class. Something that’s more artistic, and it’s perfectly in line with our mission, because so many studies show that doing creative projects is really good for brain health. So it’s not just fun. It’s fun, but you’re actually getting really good benefits. We do have a lot of repeat participants that come here, and I want to make sure they’re also having fun, not just learning things.

What do you think are some challenges you’re going to have to face, and how will you face them?

Fundraising. Always fundraising. There are so many fantastic nonprofits and really great causes in this area. We’re not competing for dollars, I wouldn’t say, but getting the word out about what we do and how well we do it, that is always one of the big challenges.

(We’ll) keep doing what we’re doing and make sure people understand who we are and what we do. And what we’re really going to do is focus more on the barrier islands in the next six months, not so much in Sarasota and Bradenton, because I feel that there are a lot of people out here on Anna Maria, Longboat (Key) and Lido (Key) that still don’t even know we’re here.