PALM COAST, Fla. (October 27, 2023) – Flagler residents love two things – good food and sea turtles. After the sixth annual Taste of the Fun Coast on Tuesday, October 24th wrapped at the Hammock Beach Golf Resort & Spa, organizers tallied up the donations.
Gathering on Friday morning Kerry Mitruska, Director of Sales & Marketing for Hammock Beach Golf Resort & Spa was thrilled to announce this year’s total beat the previous year’s donation for the animal rescue facility.
As founding partners of the event, Mitruska was joined by Flagler Broadcasting‘s President and General Manager David Ayres, and Coastal Cloud’s Amanda Mrozek on behalf of Sara Hale, to present the donation.
“We’re really fortunate to partner with a lot of great people and have the Taste of the Fun Coast here at the resort again this year. I think this is our largest contribution to date which is $13,750,” said Mitruska.
“It goes to a great cause, people who work hard to continue to save our environment, the animals that we have in it, so we’re really happy to be involved. I understand we have a date for next year of October 29, so that’ll be here before you know it and hopefully, we’ll outperform this year.”
“It’s a great partnership. We started it with Hammock Beach, Coastal Cloud just as kind of an idea, see what would happen. The first year was good, second year, now the sixth year was by far the best, and it’s become a thing for foodies and just local people wanting to help out and appreciate what the Whitney Lab’s Sea Turtle Hospital does, ” added Ayres.
Headquartered not far from the sea turtle hospital, it is a cause near and dear to the hearts of Coastal Cloud founders Sara and Tim Hale. The Palm Coast residents have made community reinvestment through corporate social responsibility, part of their company culture.
“It speaks to our values and our mission that it really does encourage us all as employees and as ownership thinkers, to give back to the community and have an impact in the environment,” said Amanda Mrozek on behalf of Coastal Cloud.
UF Whitney Laboratory Senior Director of Advancement Jessica Long praised the Taste of the Fun Coast event for the continued support.
“It’s super important. This is the sixth year of supporting sea turtles here in our community and this money directly goes to the hospital to help us take care of threatened and endangered sea turtles, and to help us understand more about how we can keep them healthy,” said Long.
Working daily with the sea turtles, as the program manager of the Sea Turtle Hospital, Catherine Eastman knows the value of every single dollar raised for the facility and was grateful to the community for their generosity.
“The Taste of the Fun Coast is such an awesome event. That the community comes together, the crew of the Sea Turtle Hospital come together and we just talk turtles, we talk food, we talk science, it’s just an awesome energetic, connective, amazing community event, we love it,” shared Eastman.
“This helps us tremendously. This goes directly to supporting all of the efforts that we do. The late nights, the early mornings, the 24-hour care with the sea turtles, whether they’re washbacks hatchlings, or the juveniles, or the late-night stranding of a nesting turtle, so this really helps us give the very best care we can to all of the sick and injured sea turtles in northeast Florida.”
