Longboat Kiwanis raise over $100,000 for Children's Guardian Fund

The Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key raised $102,150 for the Children’s Guardian Fund from Longboat's most anticipated event of the year, The Lawn Party. 

At the Kiwanis Club's bimonthly meeting on April 18, Lawn Party Event Chair Michael Garey and President Chris Sachs presented the total impact of the annual event on Dec. 2, 2023. Eight-hundred guests attended the event to enjoy the endless food and drink options from local top-tier restaurants, raffles with coveted prizes, and to raise money for the Children’s Guardian Fund.

Garey said that this year the funds raised were just short of last year’s record due to the absence of the silent auction. He thanked his committee, including his Lawn Party “MVP volunteer” Bill Totten, the sponsors, the attendees and everyone in Kiwanis for all the hard work this year.

The total proceeds from the event were $80,000 with the help of multiple sponsors and attendees. The Kiwanis Club brought its donation to $102,150 with multiple matches it received from community partners. The Doris M. Carter Family Foundation provided a match of $15,000 once the total proceeds from raffle tickets hit $20,000. The Louis and Gloria Flanzer Philanthropic Trust provided a $1,850 match. The Michael Sanders Community Foundation donated $750. The individual donations from Lawn Party attendees and supporters of the cause brought in an extra $4,550. 

Gary and Sachs presented the check for the total proceeds to Svetlana Ivashchenko, executive director of the Children’s Guardian Fund, and Cynthia Craig, gold sponsor of the Lawn Party and Children’s Guardian Fund board member. The Children’s Guardian Fund focuses on meeting emergency needs and promoting normalcy and enrichment in the lives of foster children in Florida’s 12th Judicial Circuit.

Craig explained that most of the donation will help further its resources in providing academic tutoring to foster children, which is the biggest expense for the nonprofit.

“When we first started it, we could only pay for six weeks to six months of tutoring,” said Craig. “But if a child showed that he was engaged with the tutor, this is one-on-one tutoring that we want to and are willing to pay for. If the child wanted to keep learning, we eventually rounded up enough money to keep tutoring them as long as they are engaged in the process. It becomes the kind of work that more than just tutoring, it sometimes becomes a mentorship.”