A new nonprofit calling itself Turtles for Tomorrow has hit the ground running to help Sarasota families afford school supplies.
Why turtles?
Acting president and founding board member Casey Barrett explained.
"So as you know, Sarasota is a huge nesting ground for loggerhead turtles. And every year, all of these tiny hatchlings, they face incredible odds, but they keep moving towards the ocean one step at a time. And they don't make that journey alone. Every year we have entire communities of volunteers and researchers and conservationists and neighbors, and they all come out and they protect the nests. They clear obstacles. They turn off those lights, to give them the best possible chance to succeed, and that's exactly how we see education.
"Every child has incredible potential, but sometimes they need some help to clear the path."
The group emerged in the wake of PTO meetings for Fruitville Elementary School, where these parents are very involved.
"So what happened ultimately is we realized that we're there's natural limits to a school's PTO, right?" Barrett said. "And it's not a lack of effort. It's not a lack of passion by any means. It's simply there's going to be a time when the kids grow up and they're out of elementary school. And then what happens?
"We kind of decided, hey, let's make something that that has a broader reach that isn't limited to one school or one community that doesn't have as frequent of leadership changes and something that we can just keep going all year long."
Spurred on by a statistic Barrett found – that 25 percent of families struggle to afford school supplies, bridging that gap became Turtles for Tomorrow’s first project, based at Fruitville Elementary, with plans to continue branching out to other schools and communities.
"So between the PTO and ourselves, we're covering all the copy paper, all the Expo markers, all the pencils and the crayons and everything to make sure that every kid has what they need on day one. [We're] really leveling the playing field for everybody and taking an immense amount of financial strain off of the families and the teachers as well,"
Barrett added.
Although it just organized in May, Turtles for Tomorrow is determined to make a sea change for Sarasota kids.
Barrett makes that clear on the Turtles for Tomorrow website: "No child should have to worry about whether they'll have the supplies they need, whether they can afford to participate in a field trip, or whether unpaid lunch debt means they're thinking about their next meal instead of their next learning opportunity."
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