Disaster Dog: a dog residing at a shelter, abandoned, or otherwise misplaced due to a storm or other natural disaster. 

Pinellas County Animal Services works hard to do what’s best for disaster dogs during storms and has a relationship with many Pinellas animal shelters and rescues. When back-to-back hurricanes Helene and Milton struck and Pinellas animal shelters were overwhelmed with dogs from evacuees, abandoned on the streets, or otherwise misplaced, it was an all-hands-on-deck situation. Cue independent outfits like Jaime McKnight’s Pawlicious Poochie Pet Rescue.

Since 2013, McKnight has operated her 501c3 nonprofit dog rescue. Her specialty? Senior pups, handicap, sick, and small breed dogs, 10 pounds and under.… Read More

Feature image: Arts Connection’s exhibit features the alcohol ink works by Patricia Chase

The hurricanes of 2024 certainly added tumult to the year. Many programs, including the Arts Connection at the First Presbyterian Church, seemed to be shoehorned in between these natural events. But now, 2025 is offering a fresh breath and a new start to these endeavors.

Ronn Johnson, one of the organizers, noted that he “wanted to bring the arts to FPC so that our congregation could have the enlightening experiences I was seeing in other churches.” He, and other artists from the congregation, came together to start an arts outreach program.… Read More

Feature photo: Julia Ruth Stevens and her son Tom remembering her father’s famous “call shot” at Wrigley Field in Chicago, 1932. Courtesy of Julia Ruth Stevens Family

The year 2025 is the Centennial of Babe Ruth playing baseball in St. Petersburg. It was in 1925 that the New York Yankees relocated their spring training headquarters to Florida and St. Petersburg, and along with the deal came Babe Ruth, the world’s foremost baseball athlete. To celebrate the occasion, the Kids and Kubs Senior Softball Club and the “City Hall Stars,” led by Mayor Ken Welch, will dedicate their annual Mayor’s Game to Babe Ruth, and Ruth’s grandson, Tom Stevens, will throw out the first pitch.… Read More

Many new things are coming in 2025, including a new director at the St. Pete Museum of Fine Arts. I recently caught up with Klaudio Rodriguez after his return from Art Basel to learn more about him and the future of the MFA.

Rodriguez is a good fit for a multicultural encyclopedic museum like the MFA. “My mother is Croatian, and my dad is Nicaraguan. They met in Rome, Italy and after they married, returned to Nicaragua. However, during the political turmoil there, we came to Miami. I was six years old and the only things we had, came in the suitcases that we brought with us.” … Read More

Monica Kile is a household name for many in St. Pete. You may know her from her time as Director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Eckerd College, or perhaps for her work as Executive Director of Preserve the ‘Burg. As a reader you likely have enjoyed her articles in Green Bench Monthly, I Love the ‘Burg, and our own Northeast Journal. You might have seen her running along the waterfront as she trains for yet another marathon, or possibly you know her as Mangrove Bay Middle’s newest librarian. But, most likely, you know her face from the many historic tours she has led within this city over the past 20 years.… Read More

Featured image: Youth Ministry Director Andrew Johnson and Life Teen Core member Chris Griffin with help youth fill sandbags

It’s been well over a month since hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida, and neighborhoods are still feeling her wrath. The communities of Snell Isle and Shore Acres, and their neighboring areas, are among some of the hardest hit in St. Pete. As you drive down Snell Isle Boulevard and into Shore Acres you see the remnants of what once made a home now tossed on the side of the road. The debris piles seem endless and the loss they represent are sobering.… Read More

Featured image: EnnYe Collection owners and sisters Mercy Nyamangwanda, Matipa Mutsemi and husband Vini Mutsemi. Photos by Tafadzwa Madamombe

At first glance, Matipa and Vini Mutsemi appear to be your typical, happy couple. They’ve been married for 17 years and have loved living and working in the tropical paradise of St. Pete since 2020.

As entrepreneurs, however, they also run a successful business together, EnnYe on Beach Drive. At the heart of the retail business is a Stone Sculpture Gallery curated by Vini Mutsemi. “We feature unique stone sculptures made by Zimbabwean sculptors from the Shona tribe.”

Zimbabwe means “House of Stone.”… Read More

Featured image: Pollack’s latest book is a Law-and-Order-meets-Wild Things novel based in Florida’s Rainbow River State Park. Photo courtesy of the FDEP

When Howard Pollack wrote his true crime novel based on the Long Island serial killer, he had no idea the fictional detail of DNA from a pizza box would turn out to be a near-life detail from the case. Maybe the intuitive thinking is due to his more than three-decade career as a lawyer – in Long Island. 

While he still has his New York accent, it’s been nearly 10 years since Pollack packed up and moved to St.… Read More

The 2024 storm season won’t soon be forgotten. The city experienced back-to-back hurricanes that flooded homes and carved up the landscape. But even in the darkness, there is light. The residents of this area did what they do best: they helped each other. This included hands reaching out to our local artist community.

After Milton, things were amiss in many ways. The October Art Walk was suspended. The SHINE mural festival was delayed. A popular event, Hauntizaar, was canceled. Art receptions were left unattended, art unseen, and unsold. Two art centers on the beaches, as well as numerous galleries, like A Little Room for Art, were flooded and closed. A… Read More

Hurricane Helene made landfall in the Big Bend area on September 26, one of the strongest and deadliest storms ever to hit the southeastern United States. A once-in-a-lifetime storm.

Less than two weeks later, the second strongest hurricane ever recorded in Gulf of Mexico hit just south of Sarasota, near Siesta Key.  

Few of us in the Bay Area were completely untouched. If it wasn’t our family or our home, it was someone we love or work alongside. It was the shared hurt of knowing a block, a neighborhood, a business, a community, that would simply never be the same.