BELIEVE: A Gala Celebrating 30 Years
Saturday, February 29, 2020
The Hyatt Regency Sarasota
Dinner, Auction, Dancing, and Live Performance from Nathan Coe Marsh
Benefits The Glasser/Schoenbaum Human Services Center
$250
Details and Tickets

Sarasota is deep in my bones.

In the 1800’s my ancestors settled the Lemon Bay area just South of Venice. My mom was born at Sarasota Memorial and remembers a childhood punctuated with bike rides with the neighborhood kids to watch the family that did the Human Cannonball act in the circus rehearse in their back yard, and being driven around downtown in the Giant’s car (for decades Sarasota was the Winter quarters of the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey “Greatest Show on Earth”). A visual artist, she went on to serve as a professor and department head at Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota.
After college, I moved to the Siesta Key area and launched my performing career in earnest with residencies performing magic at The Golden Apple Dinner Theater, The Melting Pot, with Circus Sarasota, and over 100 shows at Sarasota Jungle Gardens. I left the area in 2008, but miss those amazing Gulf sunsets and the vibrant cultural scene of SRQ.
So I’m delighted to not only be back in Sarasota on February 29 (Leap Day!), but to be there for an organization that does so much for the Gulf Coast community.

Why I BELIEVE:

A major challenge for non-profit organizations is administrative costs.
Money that goes into operational essentials like office space is not necessarily directly benefiting the mission of an organization, and having to compete on a cost basis with for-profit businesses for office space is a real challenge.

The Glasser/Schoenbaum Human Services Center provides a home to non-profit agencies that serve the community. Over 20 health and human services organizations that work for low-income and at-risk adults, children, and families are co-located on the center’s “Campus of Caring.”

This provides a few major benefits:

• It dramatically lowers the operational costs of these organizations, allowing them to operate more efficiently and focus resources on directly serving the people who need them
• Co-location allows for these organizations to collaborate directly in unexpected ways
• It allows those who are served by the organizations, for whom transportation may be a challenge, to come to one place for service from multiple agencies that may be able to help them in different ways (the campus location was specifically chosen for its accessibility to public transportation)
• It allows donors to multiply the impact of a gift. Instead of choosing one organization to support, a gift to The Glasser/Schoenbaum Human Services Center simultaneously supports the mission of a number of different groups directly serving the community

As soon as this was explained to me I had two thoughts:
1. This is brilliant.
2. Why isn’t something like this everywhere?

A Magical Night on Sarasota Bay

So I am incredibly excited to have been asked to provide the headline entertainment for the center’s signature event, BELIEVE: A Gala Celebrating 30 Years.
This is going to be an incredible night, and it directly benefits the center.
During the cocktail hour, guests will experience interactive close-up magic from myself and my friend and colleague the noted sleight-of-hand artist Robert Moreland.
After guests take in a delicious three course meal, I will take the stage to share some of my favorite impossibilities. Objects will dematerialize in full view, liquid will float in mid-air, cocktails will appear and guests will laugh hard and share an amazing experience all while supporting an innovative organization with a powerful impact in the Sarasota community. Then they’ll dance the night away.

I look forward to seeing you there!

BELIEVE: A Gala Celebrating 30 Years
Saturday, February 29, 2020
The Hyatt Regency Sarasota
Dinner, Auction, Dancing, and Live Performance from Nathan Coe Marsh
Benefits The Glasser/Schoenbaum Human Services Center
$250
Details and Tickets