Judges' Choice Award Winners -
2007 Nonprofit of the Year Event CLOTHES TO KIDS
A kid's version of dressing for success Imagine your first day of school, classmates arriving in newly purchased outfits and you are wearing threadbare clothes with shoes that no longer fit. Feeling different from your fellow students, your self-esteem plummets.
Marie McClung and Jode Eye, co-founders of Clothes To Kids, didn't just imagine this. When they saw Pinellas school children experiencing it, they took action.
Their store, its contents, and their respectful and efficient distribution to low income kids free of charge are the results of donations and hundreds of hours of volunteer time.
Clothes To Kids has distributed over 12,000 wardrobes to Pinellas schoolchildren since its inception. The $5,000 grant from the Tampa Bay Business Journal and the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay will help assure more deserving young people will be showing up in Pinellas classrooms sporting new clothes and bright smiles.
CLEARWATER MARINE AQUARIUM
Caring for creatures of the sea "Your Window to the Sea," as the Clearwater Marine Aquarium (CMA) is fondly called, provides caring, imaginative, and strategic help to injured dolphins, sea turtles, and river otters in an effort to return them to their natural habitat.
A great deal of media coverage was given this year to Winter, a dolphin who arrived at CMA desperate and tail-less. After dispensing medical attention, the larger issue of survival without her tail was addressed. A custom made prosthesis was created and fitted to allow her to function in the water.
While not every patient at CMA gets media coverage, all receive needed attention. There is a small paid staff and hundreds of volunteers helping these heroic efforts.
The Tampa Bay Business Journal and the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay were very pleased to present the grant of $5,000 to this excellent organization and to provide hope to our friends in the sea.
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