Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation recently awarded $11,285,000 in new grants to support a range of local organizations serving the community. The grants include significant investments in:
- affordable housing for adults with developmental disabilities and for local artists and arts workers
- hands-on, real-world learning opportunities in two Sarasota County high schools
- expansion of All Faiths Food Bank’s DeSoto Food and Resource Center
The grants were awarded in Barancik Foundation’s winter 2026 grant round, prior to its recent announcement of shifting future grantmaking toward multiyear, general operating support. The latest grant awards bring Barancik Foundation’s total grantmaking since its founding to more than $202 million.
Meeting Basic Needs, Expanding Opportunity
The largest investment was a $2.5 million grant to All Faiths Food Bank to support relocation and expansion of its DeSoto Food and Resource Center in Arcadia. The planned new location will integrate a full-choice market and better food-storage capacity with nutrition education, benefits assistance, and other services from partner organizations, strengthening access to food and coordinated services in DeSoto County.
Other grants supporting humanitarian efforts include:
Community Assisted & Supported Living – $750,000 to support Legacy Village, an affordable housing complex in Bradenton for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities that is being created in partnership with Easterseals Southwest Florida. It will include supportive employment, skills development, and community inclusion.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Manatee County – $570,000 to support its Great Minds Great Futures mental health and wellness program, which provides on-site mental health support using trauma-informed approaches at its Club locations.
Easterseals Southwest Florida – $500,000 to support construction of the Malcolm Family Autism Center of Excellence, which will expand Easterseals’ educational and supportive services in a new facility. Barancik Foundation previously invested $421,500 in this project’s program expansion.
Teen Court of Sarasota – $400,000 to build its capacity to serve more students and families through expanded family and support services, bilingual staffing, and greater fundraising capacity.
The Foundation also earmarked $30,000 to evaluate and understand what’s working in local recovery housing as part of its Recidivism Initiative, which seeks to strengthen successful reentry and long-term stability for community members returning from incarceration.
Preparing Young People for What’s Next
Barancik Foundation awarded Sarasota County Schools a grant of $840,000 to bring a new model of hands-on, real-world learning to two of its high schools. The district will implement Junior Achievement’s 3DE program at Riverview and Wellen Park high schools, giving students access to interdisciplinary, case-based learning connected to local employers and organizations.
Other education-focused grants include:
Manasota ASALH – $450,000 to build the organizational capacity to meet growing community demand for its Freedom School and other educational programming. The grant includes a $150,000 match to help grow broader community support.
Ringling College of Art and Design – $400,000 to establish a four-year scholarship program that will provide renewable scholarships to students from Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties with artistic promise and financial need.
Flourishing – $300,000 to build the staff and administrative capacity to meet growing demand for its mentoring, academic support, leadership development, and life-skills training for teenage girls facing barriers.
Sarasota Children’s Museum – $250,000 to transition from all-volunteer leadership to professional staffing by hiring a full-time executive director, who will lead the growing organization in strengthening its program quality, expanding access to STEAM learning, and building long-term stability.
Barancik Foundation also granted $300,000 to fund the TIME Fellowship program for 2027. Through the program, the Foundation will provide 25 Sarasota County Schools educators with up to $12,000 each to complete personal projects designed to spark new approaches to teaching and learning in their schools and classrooms.
Supporting Creative Lives and Livelihoods
Barancik Foundation awarded $1.2 million to One Stop Housing Cares to support the creation of Artscape, Sarasota’s first workforce-housing community for artists, performers, and arts-sector employees. Artscape is a partnership between One Stop Housing, which will develop and manage the property, and the Arts & Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County, which will lead artist engagement and future arts programming on the site.
The Arts & Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County also was awarded a $300,000 grant for operating support and to provide new programming for emerging artists.
In addition to these grants, Barancik Foundation awarded nearly $2.3 million in operating support to more than 25 nonprofit organizations that were long supported by founders Chuck and Margie Barancik.
