Bruno’s of Brooklyn’s Plate It Up Chef Challenge raises $18,000 for Community Cooperative

A fundraiser on April 4 at Bruno’s of Brooklyn in Fort Myers raised $18,000 for Community Cooperative. The ticketed dinner featured a live auction and the premiere of chef-owner Cal Bruno’s Plate It Up Challenge.

For the video series, Community Cooperative challenged chef-owner Cal Bruno to create a dish in 30 minutes using surprise ingredients donated to the Community Cooperative pantry. The judges were City of Fort Myers Fire Chief Tracy McMillion, Lee County Tax Collector and Community Cooperative board member Noelle Branning and Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre General Manager Melissa Vogt.

Bruno’s ingredients were boxed macaroni and cheese, frozen shrimp, mincemeat and fresh carrots. He created shrimp macaroni and cheese with carrot and roasted garlic cream sauce with mincemeat, prosciutto rosemary and roasted almond crostini. The video is available for viewing at Community Cooperative’s YouTube channel.

The goal of the series is to raise awareness about the challenges the Community Cooperative team faces in feeding the hungry in Southwest Florida.

For information about Community Cooperative’s programs or volunteering or donating visit CommunityCooperative.com.

For 37 years, Community Cooperative has worked to effectively eliminate hunger and homelessness in Lee County while simultaneously inspiring and supporting sustained positive change in its clients by delivering innovative food, education and social service programs. For more resources and information on how to get involved, contact Tami Holliday at Tami@communitycooperative.com or call (239) 332-7687. Monetary donations are always welcomed and can be made directly at www.CommunityCooperative.com, or mailed to: Community Cooperative, P.O. Box 2143, Fort Myers, FL 33902.

Johnson appointed to Lee County Tourist Development Council

The Lee Board of County Commissioners appointed Jay Johnson to the Lee County Tourist Development Council.

Johnson will serve a four-year term.

For 28 years, Johnson has been the owner of Bubba’s Roadhouse & Saloon in Cape Coral. He has worked in the hospitality industry his entire career, including 12 years with Sheraton Hotels.

He currently serves as a board member of both the Cape Coral Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Fort Myers Chamber of Commerce. He also serves as the president of the Lee chapter of the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association.

The nine voting TDC seats are composed of three elected officials, three representatives from accommodations collecting the tourist tax and three representatives from tourism-related industries, as directed by Florida Statutes.

The TDC was established as an advisory board to the BoCC in 1983 to increase off-season tourism in Lee County.

For more information about the TDC, visit leevcb.com and leegov.com/bocc.

Mercola Market to host new comedy nights starting May 28

Mercola Market & Café, a natural health retail store and community hub in Cape Coral, will now host a new series of comedy nights, starting Saturday, May 28.

Organized by ComiCure, this adult-only (21 years and older) event will begin with a happy hour at 6 p.m. followed by the live entertainment at 7 p.m., which will feature two comedians who have appeared on TMZ, MTV, The Howard Stern Show and more.

Located at 125 SW 3rd Place in Cape Coral, the Market will also be providing food for the evening to include healthy wraps, grilled chicken sandwiches and side options.

Tickets for the show are $30 per person, including food, and can be purchased directly at midcapecomedynight.eventbrite.com. Ticket prices will increase $10 on the day of the event. Seating is first come, first serve.

For more information or a complete list of upcoming events and updates, visit mercolamarketcc.com.

Storm Smart donates to Save the Children’s Ukraine Crisis Relief

Storm Smart, a storm-protection and lifestyle-enhancement company, launched a campaign during the month of April to raise awareness and funds for Save the Children, a global humanitarian organization actively working to meet the urgent needs of children and their families in Ukraine.

Storm Smart will be donating $72,300 in May to help aid the Save the Children relief efforts in war-torn Ukraine from the successful campaign.

Storm Smart is an installer of code-approved hurricane protection products which opened its doors in Fort Myers in 1996. Storm Smart is headquartered at the Chicos FAS campus, and its manufacturing facility is at its three-plant campus located at 6182 Idlewild St., in Fort Myers. The company also has two showrooms in Southwest Florida, located at 2351 Crystal Drive, Suite 101, in Fort Myers, and in Naples at 2400 Vanderbilt Beach Road, Unit 102, and will be adding a new showroom in North Port in late Summer 2022. For more information, call 239-938-1000. Online at StormSmart.com.

Maritime lawyer Ross to discuss ‘Laws Southwest Florida Boat Owners Need to Know’ May 17

The law firm of Henderson, Franklin, Starnes & Holt, P.A., has announced that Maritime Attorney Amanda Sharkey Ross will address the Rotary Club of Fort Myers on May 17 at the Broadway Palm Dinner Theater. During her interactive discussion, she will provide information on boating under the influence, best practices with regard to title, registration and insurance, as well as address any audience questions.

Ross was elected stockholder at Henderson Franklin in 2020. She focuses her practice in the areas of transportation (automobile, marine, trucking) liability, premises liability, negligent security, wrongful death, construction litigation, and product liability. Ross also represents vessel owners, marinas, and associations and writes on various aspects of maritime law on the Southwest Florida Business and IP Blog.

Ross received her undergraduate degree from Stetson University and her juris doctorate from the University of Miami Law School, cum laude.

Ross is fluent in both English and Spanish. She may be reached at 239-344-1249 or by email at amanda.ross@henlaw.com.

Henderson Franklin is one of the largest, locally-based law firms between Tampa and Miami, with over 55 attorneys dedicated to providing a wide range of legal services in the areas of business and tax planning, estate planning, family law, business and civil litigation, eminent domain, intellectual property, workers’ compensation, employment law, real estate, and land use and environmental law. Henderson Franklin operates offices in Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Naples and Sarasota (by appointment only). For more information on Ross or Henderson Franklin, please visit www.henlaw.com.

Kintz joins Priority Marketing as senior graphic designer

Kate Kintz has joined Priority Marketing as a senior graphic designer after spending the past 15 years creating award-winning designs for the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.

As a senior graphic designer, Kintz’s responsibilities at Priority Marketing include developing innovative digital and print designs that bring clients’ visions to life and generate positive results.

Kintz earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where she also minored in business.

Founded in 1992 by Teri Hansen, APR, Priority Marketing is a full-service marketing, advertising, public relations, website development and digital marketing agency celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2022. The firm has more than 49 strategists whose areas of expertise include brand development, public relations, graphic design, social media and email marketing, media planning, web solutions, event planning, video production, digital advertising and more. Priority Marketing serves clients across a broad spectrum of industries, including hospitality and tourism, retail, health care, senior living, construction, legal, financial, government, education, locally owned businesses and charitable organizations. For more information, please call 239-267-2638 or visit PriorityMarketing.com.

Harris Schwinn elected North Fort Myers Rotary Club president

Pavese Law Firm partner Christina Harris Schwinn has been elected as incoming president of the North Fort Myers Rotary Club by its members, and will serve for the term of one year starting July 1. She will be inducted into her presidency the evening of May 14, at the Magnolia Country Club in North Fort Myers.

The Rotary Club is an organization of business and professional leaders united worldwide, who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. From the Florida Bar to the Lee County Alliance for the Arts, in addition to her new position with the Rotary, Schwinn holds several professional and personal associations and memberships and offers much of her time to community service and working to better the lives and businesses of others in her community.

The Rotary is the world’s first service club, founded in Chicago, in 1905, and today more than a million service-minded men and women belong to over 35,000 Rotary clubs in virtually every nation in the world. Rotarians plan and carry out a remarkable variety of humanitarian, educational and cultural exchange programs that touch people’s lives in their local communities and the world. The Rotary Club of North Fort Myers is located at 4141 Orange Grove Blvd. For more information, please visit https://rotarynftmyers.org/.

Schwinn joined the Pavese Law Firm in 2005 and became a partner in 2009. She specializes in business and corporate law; civil litigation; condominium and homeowner’s association law; and employment and real estate law. Schwinn is an accomplished public speaker and regularly writes articles that have been published locally and nationally. She is available to speak to local businesses and organizations on a variety of employment law topics and can be reached at 239-336-6228 or christinaschwinn@paveselaw.com.

Southwest Florida Enterprise Center to host graduation, job fair May 19

The Fort Myers Community Redevelopment Agency this week announced that the Southwest Florida Enterprise Center will host a graduation and community job fair on Thursday, May 19.

The events will take place at the Southwest Florida Enterprise Center at 3903 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in Fort Myers.

The graduation will take place from 4-5 p.m. in recognition of students who have completed the Pre-Construction Train to Gain Program. The community job fair will take place following the graduation from 5-7 p.m. and will include representatives from the Lee County School District, Ford Drywall & Stucco, SWFL Impact Partners, Goodwill Industries, B&I Contractors, Skanska, Score and SBDC.

In March, Lee County’s unemployment rate was 2.5 percent, the lowest since Dec. 2006.

“The Southwest Florida Enterprise Center is not only a hub for new business owners but also an avenue for future businesses to train to work on the business and not in the business,” said Phyllis R. Calloway J.D., director at the SWFL Enterprise Center.

Anyone interested in attending is asked to RSVP by today, May 13, to Jasmine Clark at jclark@cityftmyers.com or call 239-321-7087.

The Southwest Florida Enterprise Center is a learning laboratory for entrepreneurial enterprises and provides assistance and support to entrepreneurs so that they may realize the full potential of their enterprise and of themselves as business owners and managers.