provided to The Santiva Chronicle
On June 3, St. Michael’s and All Angels Church is launching an initiative to support our island businesses and services and asking everyone to join in to make a meaningful impact. Every week, Love Sanibel Businesses Back organizers will highlight a different set of businesses where a mix and mingle event will be held. The kickoff will occur at 11:30 a.m. June 3 at Over Easy Cafe. Residents, visitors, city and nonprofit leaders are all encouraged not only to show up the day of these events, but to deliberately support our businesses on an on-going basis, particularly until we get our island back up to scale.
Mayor Richard Johnson, who is also a business owner on Sanibel and Captiva understands the need and quickly endorsed the Love Sanibel Businesses Back initiative. “This campaign is a great idea and one that should come to fruition,” he said. “We absolutely need to mind the gap.”
Johnson explained the importance of supporting our local businesses. “Our community needs our businesses to be there for them once they all return; our businesses need us all to support them now so that they will be there for us in the future.”
Event organizers saw the need and recognized how challenging it is for businesses to operate sustainably while the island is not back to capacity.
“Since these are businesses and services that greatly improve the quality of our lives on Sanibel and Captiva, day in and day out, now it’s our turn to support them, to love them back, until our islands are fully restored.” one organizer commented.
The need is great and may be on-going for quite some time, so businesses could use our all-out support.
While the primary objective of this campaign is to tangibly support businesses, a secondary goal is to simply have events that encourage everyone on the island to continue to gather, support one another and to foster our sense of community and belonging. This initiative is an extension of St. Michael’s overall mission, which as Fr. Bill Van Oss explained, “is to encourage one another in our daily lives to act in ways that show everyone they are loved, equally valued and belong.”
A complete summer schedule of the Love Sanibel Businesses Back events is below, but planners hope these gatherings will grow in popularity so that they can extend the program to include every island business until our islands are fully restored. John Lai, of The Sanibel-Captiva Chamber was consulted about the idea and helped recommend this first round of businesses to receive a boost and has whole heartedly offered the chamber’s support.
| Date | Time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Monday, June 3 | 11:30 a.m. | Over Easy Cafe (lunch) & Olde Sanibel Shops |
| Monday, June 10 | 2 p.m. | Pinocchio's Ice Cream & Periwinkle Place |
| Tuesday, June 18 | 9 a.m. | Sanibel Cafe (breakfast) & Tahitian Gardens |
| Tuesday, June 25 | 3 p.m. | The Magic Bus Ice Cream & Lighthouse District Shops |
| Wednesday, July 3 | 9 a.m. | Jerry's (coffee, breakfast) & Shops at Jerry's |
| Wednesday, July 10 | 2 p.m. | The Shack, She Sells Sea Shells, Huxters & MacIntosh Books |
| Thursday, July 18 | 3 p.m. | Bubble Room Boops, Emporium & The Island Store (Captiva) |
| Thursday, July 25 | 11:30 a.m. | Lighthouse Cafe (lunch), Rachel Pierce Gallery, Outdoor Market |
| Friday, Aug. 2 | 9 a.m. | Sanibel Deli (coffee, breakfast), CROW & Pak-N-Ship gift shops |
| Friday, Aug. 9 | 4 p.m. | Hirdie Girdie & Tower Gallery, Sanibel Grill (dinner) |
| Saturday, Aug. 17 | 6 p.m. | Rosalita's (dinner), "Ding" Refuge/Visitor Center/Store (9a-4p) |
| Saturday, Aug. 24 | 6 p.m. | Tutti Pazzi (dinner) |
The kickoff to the “Love Sanibel Businesses Back” season will be at the Over Easy Café. Join city and non-profit leaders and your neighbors and be part of the movement to pull together and meaningfully Love Sanibel Back. Feel free to come with family and friends or come alone, you’ll be sure to feel comfortable in the inclusive spirit of Sanibel as we unite to bring our islands back. For questions contact St. Michael’s at communications@saintmichaels-sanibel.org.