Thank-You

With an eye on protecting, preserving and enhancing our piece of paradise, Lido Key Residents Association, in May 2022, began awarding scholarships to a Booker High School senior or recent grad student that demonstrates an interest in pursuing a higher education with a focus on those environmental issues we face here on Lido.  Our goal is to award a scholarship annually to one or more Booker High students.  The scholarship fund gives our members and others in our community an opportunity to be a part of this worthwhile effort. 

This fundraising effort began in 2017 in support a legal challenge filed by a group of Siesta Key residents over the use of sand from Big Pass in the proposed Lido Key Hurricane and Shoreline Damage Reduction project.  The project was funded and approved following years of work and diligent review by the Army Corps of Engineers, the City of Sarasota and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.  LKRA, representing the property owners on the beach became the "injured party".  The lawsuits lasting over 4 years of verdicts and appeals resulted in significant legal fees.  Our position was documented in a flyer titled  Facts, Not Fear Will Restore Lido Beach first distributed in May, 2017. 

LKRA reached out to the community and to the residents for donations through a campaign called Lido Key Sand Matters Legal Fund.  LKRA also co-sponsored three fundraising galas, a Soiree hosted by the Ritz-Carlton at their Beach Club on January 29, 2019, a Mardi Gras party hosted by Ocean Properties at their Lido Beach Resort on March 5, 2019 and a Luau again hosted by Ritz-Carlton at their Beach Club on January 26, 2020.   A combination of these fundraising efforts and the outpouring of donations from residents and others produced a needed hundreds of thousands of dollars.  LKRA leadership is thankful and so appreciative of everyone that contributed. This was a community effort.

The renourishment has been completed and the Beach was dedicated on May 27, 2021.  Although the suits were settled one after another in favor of the project, there are still options available to the Siesta Key group if they choose to pursue them, so continuing to maintain the legal fund is prudent.