One Woman’s Mission to Raise Awareness in Our Community

When Beth Vivio thinks about people in our community going to bed hungry each night it makes her sad. “We see food everywhere we look: restaurants, specialty food stores, advertisements and TV food shows.” Yet as many as 17% of residents in the Tampa Bay area go to sleep with empty stomachs.

Beth and her husband are originally from Ohio, but moved here in 2011 from Texas with their two sons. Beth works as a full-time volunteer and got involved at the boys’ new school, Shorecrest Preparatory, right away.  Beth is on the board of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Tampa Bay, the All Children’s Hospital Foundation board, as well as the Shorecrest board of trustees.… Read More

Do you remember a time when your local mom-and-pop corner store was clean, had something for everyone, and employed a warm and friendly staff who cared about its customers and community? These attributes for the recently opened BP Old Northeast General Store were the dream for owner Steve May. His dream has been realized.

Steve grew up in rural Ohio where the local general store played a huge role. Steve recalls, “It’s where we bought our bottles of Coke and penny candies. And where people were friends and neighbors before they were customers, and where a sense of community was supported.… Read More

Water. Bruce Denson grew up on it (in the form of a family lake house in Ocala National Forest). He currently has a bunch of it in his Snell Isle backyard (in the form of a brightly tiled swimming pool and shimmers-in-the-sun Smacks Bayou). And he’s found a way to weave it into the lives of the troubled individuals he encounters in his role as a criminal defense and DUI attorney (in the form of… well, we’re about to get to that).

Bruce is so all about H20, in fact, that he even created a red-hot stand-up paddleboarding event, the Florida Cup, that’s winning raves along the Gulf Coast and far beyond.… Read More

Finally the season had changed in Florida! It was crisp, sunny day in early November and I was outside enjoying the fresh air while building a new shed in my backyard. My neighbor, Donna Carpenter, was also out in her backyard and she came to the fence to admire the large plastic shed I was finishing up. We began chatting and she told me that she would like to get a plastic shed. Her old aluminum shed was damaged in a storm last year and had to be taken down. The contents of said shed were piled on her pool deck and in her dining room.… Read More

Sharing All of Those? Sunken Gardens Awaits You!

What to do when you retire? Ummm… go to the oldest roadside attraction in the United States and become a docent! Really? Yes, that’s what one Old Northeast resident did! And, not in an air-conditioned museum; no, this dedicated soul went straight to our beloved Sunken Gardens to volunteer.

Susan Rebillot, who has lived in St. Petersburg since she was 10 years old, has always loved gardening. It was in the family, after all. Her grandfather from Italy was a farmer and her grandmother from France grew roses and other flowers in New Hampshire.… Read More

Yes, I do have a mango tree. I do share the fruit with anyone who wants it, especially anyone who will climb up and pick the highest mangoes. I even share with the squirrels, not that I have any choice. But, really, there are more mangoes than our family and our neighbors and the squirrels can eat.

And, truthfully, some go to waste. How awful! That’s just one tree. According to research, an estimated half of all produce grown in this country goes to waste. And yet, one in six people (locally and nationally) are ‘food insecure,’ meaning they don’t know from where their next meal will come!… Read More

The Old Northeast feels like a small, friendly neighborhood to me because so many people in the neighborhood are friendly. I regularly take walks and run into neighbors I do not know by name but readily greet and, more often than not, end up chatting with for a few minutes.

A few years back, while walking and looking down at the street, a random thought made me wonder how many bricks there are in the Old Northeast roads. I started doing the math, thinking there must be hundreds of thousands, but it didn’t take long to realize we have millions of bricks in our neighborhood.… Read More

The Melting Pot. That’s one of the things we as a nation are proud of… a fascinating tapestry of ethnicities, nationalities, and cultures. As the saying goes, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” St. Petersburg is a microcosm of the country, boasting residents from around the world. According to the United States Census Bureau, 19.2% of Florida’s population was born in another country – compared to 12.8% nationally. 27% speak another language besides English – in contrast to 20.3% across the nation. Our new neighbors are eager to learn about their new home, contribute to the healthy growth of this city, and establish solid roots.… Read More

“On this International Day, let us promise to make peace not just a priority, but a passion. Let us pledge to do more, wherever we are in whatever way we can, to make every day a day of peace.” — United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

On Saturday afternoon, September 21, 2013, the acoustics of the magnificent hall of The Palladium Theater at St. Petersburg College will reverberate with pulsating rhythms, vibrant messages, and melodious voices emanating from some of the Tampa Bay area’s most talented groups and individuals. They will assemble at a musical concert in harmonic support of the call by the United Nations General Assembly to collectively celebrate globally and locally the reality of peace.… Read More