by SCLO | Apr 14, 2014 | Blog
I have been going to Second Chance for life skill classes for years now, dipping in and out when my life wasn’t going so well and when I needed a booster I would go back. The classes are always different and I learn something new (or get a reminder of something old) every time I come.
The SISTA meetings were the best. The talks we had in the class stick with me and I feel I can now deal with all that I go through. I can now stand up for myself and I don’t put myself down all the time either. I am so grateful to Second Chance and hope it will stand forever. To me it’s a place of goodness that has helped me out and gave me the skills and self-belief that now I can help myself out. I hope the feeling I have in me now will never change but I know that Miss April and the other ladies are there if I need a reminder of what the SISTA meetings taught me. Thank you, Second Chance!
Soon after Shirley took her last class with SCLO, she was offered an administrative job in the office at Selby Goodwill where she has developed people and computer skills.
by SCLO | Apr 14, 2014 | Blog
We are so lucky to have partners in the community who make it easy for people to donate items to Second Chance. The following locations will kindly accept donations on behalf of SCLO; none of these donations will be sold but will be given out to those individuals participating in our life skills programs.
GULF GATE
Nontando, 6578 Gateway Avenue, Sarasota, FL 34231 (Tues.-S, 10am-5pm)
DOWNTOWN SARASOTA
DWY Landscape Architects, 1543 Second Street, Sarasota, FL 34236 (M-F, 9am-5pm)
LAKEWOOD RANCH
Shapes Total Fitness, 8219 Cooper Creek Blvd., University Park, FL 34201 (M-F, 5am-9pm, Sat, 8am-6pm, Sun, 9am-5pm)
Items that are always in demand include:
Clothing (clean and in good condition) for adults and children
Baby items (diapers, baby wipes, baby lotion, baby oil, baby clothes)
Non-perishable food (peanut butter, cans of soup/fruit/vegetables/stew, breakfast cereal, pasta, sauce, mac cheese, fruit juices, etc.)
Toiletries and personal hygiene (tampons, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, toilet paper, toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant, etc.)
Thank you for supporting the families we work with and for visiting our community partners.
by SCLO | Apr 14, 2014 | Blog
If you’re looking for the happiest, funniest New Year’s Eve party, you’ll want to know about the SCLO first annual Collard Greens Cook-Off.
It is a true community event, developed with the help of local residents from a wonderfully creative idea SCLO CEO April Glasco came up with one day. We have 17 contestants and City Commissioner Willie Shaw, County Commissioner Carolyn Mason, Mayors’ Feed The Hungry Chairperson Joel Swallow, and David Thomas from Sam’s Club as judges. Collard greens were donated by Suncoast Food Alliance. $5 gets you into the happiest New Year’s Eve party in town, plus greens tasting, cornbread, and sweet potato pie at 1355 Boulevard of the Arts, between 4 and 6pm.
Who can argue with good home-cooked food, friendly competition, and good, old-fashioned fun just for the sake of it?
Happy New Year!
by SCLO | Apr 14, 2014 | Blog
Our first project on Gulf Coast Gives, the giving portal of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, was a huge success thanks to 7 generous donors. The ‘Calculate The Difference’ Holiday Shopping Project enables teens to go shopping with a gift card and calculator to choose their own gifts while learning some money management tips at the same time. The teens enjoyed their independent shopping trip, choosing presents for themselves and family members, and enjoying the challenge of squeezing every last penny from the gift card, with the aid of a calculator to help them keep track.
One girl was busy choosing something for her baby brother, mom, and grandmother, leaving herself to last!
Everything Second Chance does has an element of education to it, some obvious, some not so, and our ‘Calculate The Difference’ Holiday Shopping Project is a perfect example.
by SCLO | Apr 14, 2014 | Blog
The second SCLO Women of Wisdom Awards Evening will be held on November 3rd at 6pm in the Community Room of the Sarasota Herald Tribune Building, honoring Pam Carter (JH Floyd Sunshine Manor), Shirley Walker (Goodwill), and Pastor Robinson (Living Hope) for their huge contribution to our community.
These special Women of Wisdom have shown they are strong, safe, survivors – matching the goals of the SISTA Project and therefore it seemed fitting that our SISTAs host the Women of Wisdom Awards Evening. These newly empowered young women surprised themselves by being able to plan the event from the start, which included interviewing the three honorees who served as their role models.
As these SISTA Project graduates are now able to be mentors to younger ladies in the community, their involvement in the Women of Wisdom evening serves two purposes. Firstly, it reinforces the importance for the graduates to have a strong, selfless role model and of gaining the confidence to become mentors themselves. Secondly, it also gives the SCLO volunteers a project they can take ownership of, giving them the satisfaction of following something worthwhile through to completion.
Please call 360-8660 to rsvp if you are able to join us on November 3rd to celebrate the accomplishments of these three very special women.
by SCLO | Apr 14, 2014 | Blog
I joined the SISTA program last year, not knowing that it would become the foundation of me learning to be the strong woman I always wanted to be. I found myself being over excited to see what we would be doing in class each week. And as time progressed I became able to say that some of my most memorable, life changing moments were brought on during my most appreciated experience at SCLO!
Through Second Chance, we were able to attend a Woman Act Now Women’s Conference in Orlando that bonded all the young ladies that had a chance to go. It also gave us our ‘voices’; we all took something special away from that powerful experience. It reinforced much of what we had been learning in the SISTA Program.
I think I speak for all the participants of the SISTA Program when I say that the skills, encouragement, wisdom and love we received from Second Chance helped us to apply all the things that we learned in SISTA to our daily lives. I consider myself blessed to have been able to enjoy the SISTA Program and SCLO as a whole because all the women I encountered encouraged me to be the best ‘me’ that I can be. On behalf of the women in my community that SCLO has blessed and to all those supporters who made it possible for the women to participate in the SCLO programs, I thank you for changing our lives.
