Sarasota Yacht Club builds a playhouse for Harvest House

When youth members from the Sarasota Yacht Club learned about the number of homeless children in Sarasota, they wanted to make a difference. 

From ages 6 to 65, 75 members of the club partnered together to build a playhouse for children on a Sarasota Harvest House campus. Twenty members hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Aug. 9 to unveil the new play area. 

“We couldn’t have done this without one of the club members, Mark (Padgett),” said Stephania Feltz, philanthropy and special projects director at the club. “He has told me stories of his parents who instilled in him the belief that you don't help others in your community because you can help others. But you help others because you must and you should. It's a responsibility, and so we are excited to be sharing that legacy in a very meaningful way.”

Photo by Petra Rivera

Wanting to help the homeless population in any way possible, Sarasota Yacht Club partnered up with Harvest House, which provides emergency housing for the local homeless population. 

After chatting with the Harvest House team, they realized the importance of having options for children to play while growing up. With this in mind, the idea of funding and building Harvest House’s very own playhouse was born. 

Mark Padgett, with the SYC Cares Committee — the charitable arm of the yacht club — led the initiative to fund the money for the project through the Gingerbread House Auction, where it sold a giant gingerbread house. The club’s high school members, the Ensign Board, honed their writing skills by writing a grant that was presented and approved by the SYC Cares Committee to make the project a learning experience.

Photo by Petra Rivera

Mark Sultana, as architect, and Ethan Bleach, as project manager, led their fellow club members in building the project, which took over a year. Feltz expressed that the year of teamwork, struggle and philanthropy was worth it to provide a safe place for kids to play where usually they don't have that opportunity. 

“Part of our goal in what we do is in helping the kids to be kids,” said Harvest House CEO and Executive Director Erin Minor. “This right here plays right in line with that ethos of ours to make sure that families are having that rest time when they get home from school, the kids can play, just feel like kids, and not carry the burden of crisis.”

This story has been updated to correct the roles of the club members involved in the project.