Former Saddlebrook GM To Open Community Café By June 15!

Former Saddlebrook GM Pat Ciaccio’s new ‘Passion Project’ will provide career opportunities for the developmentally disabled. (Photos and rendering by Charmaine George)

Pat Ciaccio says that before Saddlebrook Resort was sold last year to Mast Capital, it was providing a safe haven where intellectually and developmentally disabled adults could work and be accepted.

The former long-time Saddlebrook general manager says that all the years that he worked for the resort’s founder and owner Tom Dempsey, “were very good to me and my family and I knew that what I really wanted to do was give something back and do something to help people with special needs.”

Above is a rendering created by Neighborhood News multimedia specialist Charmaine George which superimposes over the current construction site what the various areas of the Community Café will resemble. 

Ciaccio says he was building on the good work Saddlebrook started when he came up with the idea for his new nonprofit passion project — which he calls the Community CafĂ©, located in the 3,200-sq.-ft. former Keeps Carpet Store building on S.R. 54, less than a half-mile west of Morris Bridge Rd. 

“The Community CafĂ© will create welcoming spaces and provide workforce training opportunities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” Ciaccio says. “I know there are other businesses that hire the developmentally disabled, including Publix, but we want to do even more to help them. We want to train them so they can not only have a job, but actually move up to management positions. Nearly our entire staff of 30-35 employees (when it opens) will be people with these special needs who normally find it difficult to find a job.”

Raised in New Jersey, Ciaccio says his family background spans more than five generations of leaders in the hospitality industry. He says the Community CafĂ© will be home to a gourmet coffee bar and also will sell ice cream and smoothies (see rendering, right). The CafĂ© also will feature a retail shop selling T-shirts, coffee mugs and other branded merchandise. He says he has visited several other businesses around the country with similar concepts, including Rise & Nye’s in Sarasota. 

Pat Ciaccio outlines his vision for the Community Café’s event center.

And finally, there is an 1,100-sq.-ft. private event space that will feature artwork (that will be for sale, with all sales proceeds going to the artists) rotating quarterly by intellectually and developmentally disabled professional artists affiliated with Art4All. He says there will be entertainment on Friday and Saturday nights featuring performers with special needs. He adds that the event space will be available for use by community organizations.

Best of all, each area of the Community CafĂ© will have its own “team leader” among the “Shining Stars,” which is what all of the employees will be called. Only Ciaccio himself and the Café’s top management will not have special needs.  

The Shining Stars will deliver a high-quality food and beverage experience with exceptional guest service in a tranquil, family-oriented, decompressing, “Team Greater Than Me” environment.

Ciaccio says that his goal is to provide cohesive and inclusive workforce training that will offer advancement opportunities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“We truly are looking to change the current narrative about special needs adults from awareness to education,” he says. “The narrative must be changed.” 

Ciaccio isn’t alone in his passion to help those with special needs. 

“I am in partnership with Katbrat Studios (which specializes in digital media and content creation), John Lombardo Coaching & Consulting and The Leyda Group (which specializes in leadership coaching and human resources consulting).

The Community Café also will be led and mentored by a five-person Board of Directors: Dr. Alexis Dempsey-Doyle, Jodi Gordon, Wasim Kayal, Seth Ravenna and Dr. Mohamad Saleh.

“We plan to connect the community through educational workshops and podcasts in the Café’s event center while providing an exceptional food and beverage experience,” Ciaccio says.

As though he’s not already busy enough, Ciaccio, Tom Dempsey and Erik and Seth Ravenna also are opening Johnny C’s Italian Eatery on Cross Creek Blvd. in New Tampa, in the former Precinct Pizza location. 

Get More Info On Apr. 18!

Although Ciaccio says he anticipates that the Community Café will open on or around June 15, he and his leadership team will host a News Conference that will be open to the entire local community, as well as the media. The event will be held on Tuesday April 18 (the day many of you will receive this issue in your mailbox), at 11 a.m., at the Hilton Garden Inn Tampa-Wesley Chapel (26640 Silver Maple Pkwy.). Ciaccio says he thanks Hilton Garden Inn GM Charlie Whiteacre for graciously agreeing to host this event.

“I also would like to thank all my partners and community members who already have reached out to lend support,” Ciaccio says. “It takes a village but together, I know that we can change the narrative!”

For more information, visit CommunityCafeFL.com.

New Tampa Will Help Decide City Council Runoffs Apr. 25!

Candidates on the April 25 City of Tampa City Council Runoff Election ballot include  (l.-r., above) Dr. Sonja P. Brookins vs. Alan Clendenin in District 1, Robin Lockett vs. Guido Maniscalco in District 2 and (below) Janet Cruz (left) vs. Lynn Hurtak (right) in District 3. 

In March, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor easily defeated a write-in opponent and New Tampa’s District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera was re-elected without opposition to serve four more years, but that doesn’t mean that New Tampa residents have no reason to go to the polls for the City of Tampa Runoff Election on Tuesday, April 25. 

In fact, Viera says that much more important than who you vote for is that you need to get out and vote. He says that no matter how hard he is willing to fight on City Council to fulfill — and fund —New Tampa’s needs, our community’s usually lower-than-the-rest-of-the-city voter turnout makes it harder for him to get things done. 

“New Tampa has traditionally been considered somewhat apathetic when it comes to voting and that does make it harder for me to get other Council members to support the needs of this community.”

The numbers bear out Viera’s claims of voter apathy. In the 2019 Municipal Election, which included a hotly contested race for Mayor, the citywide turnout was 20.56%, but in New Tampa’s 17 precincts, it was only 16.8%. In the Runoff Election in Apr. 2019, which included the mayoral runoff won by Mayor Castor over David Straz, the turnout was even higher — 23.2% citywide and a reasonable 18.5% across New Tampa’s 17 precincts.

In this year’s Municipal Election, where Castor faced only write-in candidate (and New Tampa resident) Belinda Noah (whose name did not appear on the ballot), the citywide turnout was only 13.65%, but the turnout in New Tampa’s 21 precincts was less than half of that, at only 6.5%.

Viera says that despite the fact that there are only three citywide City Council seats — Districts 1, 2 and 3 (plus the District 6 runoff between current Dist. 2 Council member Charlie Miranda and Hoyt Prindle) — being contested at this year’s Runoff Election, he expects a citywide turnout of about 12%. 

Viera says it would be great if New Tampa could beat that percentage at the runoff, and he says everyone should check out the campaign websites and social media pages of each of the six candidates shown on this page and cast votes for those who seem to best align with their own political philosophies.

Here’s a quick rundown of the three races in which New Tampa is eligible to vote:

District 1 — Dr. Sonja P. Brookins vs. Alan Clendenin

Dr. Brookins, a long-time educator, has served two years as an elected supervisor with the Hillsborough Soil & Water Conservation District and has been endorsed by the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Tampa Bay. 

Clendenin, who has served in multiple positions for Democratic committees (including first vice chair of the Florida Democratic Party), was a long-time air traffic control professional. He has been endorsed by the Tampa Bay Times, La Gaceta and Creative Loafing newspapers, the Tampa Police Benevolent Assn. and Tampa Firefighters 754 union, New Tampa’s State Rep. Fentrice Driskell, the Sierra Club and LGBTQ Victory Fund.

District 2 — Robin Lockett vs. Guido Maniscalco

Lockett is the former president of the Hillsborough Democratic Black Caucus who has been a regular advocate for vulnerable people at City Council meetings, as well as an organizer with the Florida Rising progressive social advocacy group. She has been endorsed by Creative Loafing.

Maniscalco, the two-term Dist. 6 Council member (and current vice chair) who is running in Dist. 2 because of term limits, has been endorsed by the Tampa Bay Times, the Greater Tampa Realtors, Tampa Firefighters 754, the Sierra Club and Equality Florida.

City of Tampa City Council Runoff Election District 3 Candidates Janet Cruz (left) vs. Lynn Hurtak (right) in District 3.
District 3 — Janet Cruz vs. Lynn Hurtak

Cruz, the former State Sen. who lost a tough race to Jay Collins in Nov., has been endorsed by the Tampa Bay Times, Mayor Castor and former Mayor Bob Buckhorn.

Hurtak, the Dist. 3 incumbent, has been endorsed by Creative Loafing, La Gaceta, Florida LGBTQ+, Florida Rising, the Tampa Bay Progressive Caucus and Muslims for Democracy & Fairness.

Local HOSA Students Promoting Breast Cancer Awareness

Health Occupations Students of America, aka HOSA-Future Health Professionals, is a global student-led organization that actively promotes career opportunities in the health industry, and four New Tampa-area residents who all attend Strawberry Crest High in Dover and participate in the school’s International Baccalaureate (IB) Programme have created “Project Pink” to raise awareness about breast cancer.

Strawberry Crest sophomores Elizabeth Chettipally, Aditi Nair, Anika Prasad, and Netra Vijay (photo) will participate in HOSA’s Community Awareness competition by focusing on breast cancer, which affects more than 250,000 women (killing about 42,000) each year in the U.S. alone.

“Our team first felt the urge to raise awareness for breast cancer when we saw how fiercely one of our team member’s family (members) fought against breast cancer,” Anika wrote in the Crest Critique. “Being females and students, we saw the lack of education and awareness of breast cancer in our community and decided to make a change.”

To begin their quest to raise community awareness of breast cancer, the four friends spoke to Archana Nair, RN, an advisor in the Breast Clinic at the Moffitt Cancer Center, and Shilpa Sachdev, MD, an internal medicine specialist in Wauchula, FL. They also met with Shreya Shivan, a student at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. 

“Through these discussions, our team realized that the subject of breast cancer is extremely personal, and a strong support system is needed by women survivors to reclaim feminine identity,” Anika wrote. 

In October — also known as Breast Cancer Awareness Month — the quartet began their efforts by staging a “Pink Out” (getting students at their school to wear pink, including the cheerleaders at the Strawberry Crest football game that night). They also participated in the Cory Lake Isles Unity Walk in November.

“I feel like that even though a lot of people know about breast cancer, when it comes to the facts, to the details, we’re all lacking,” Netra says. “There’s also a lot of stigmatization about breast cancer because, when you talk about someone’s breasts, it’s a very taboo topic in our society, so I feel like it’s something people need to know about before the diagnosis.” 

Anika adds, “We also want people to know that just because you’re diagnosed, it doesn’t mean it’s the end. We just want to spread hope to them.”

The group also will participate in Dr. Helene Robinson’s “Hugs from Heaven for Sister Warriors” breast cancer awareness podcast. Dr. Robinson is a faculty member at USF’s Sarasota-Manatee campus.

In addition, the friends recently hosted a HOPE Kit packing party (photo left), in partnership with the National Breast Cancer Foundation — with donated items, such as makeup, wrist bands, notebooks, travel mugs and other “goodies” — that will be mailed to women who are struggling with breast cancer across the country. 

Their school reposted the announcements the girls made on their Instagram about the packing party and also has allowed them to set up tables in the school’s library and talk with other students after school assemblies. They also were permitted to broadcast the “Pink Out” at the end-of-the-day announcements for a week before that event. The school’s Student Government Assn. and PTSA also helped spread the word about the girls’ efforts.

And, while there are more than 100 HOSA students at Strawberry Crest, the four friends are the only ones participating in the Breast Cancer Awareness campaign. They all will travel to Orlando April 13-16 to participate in the State of Florida Leadership Conference for HOSA, where they will make a presentation about their project. 

For more info, visit “Project Pink” on Instagram, “CrestProjectPink/Videos” on YouTube or schshosa.wixsite.com/projectpink.