Brandon Crowns a 'Princess,' Sylvia Thomas Gets Some Funds

Brandon has a princess and the Sylvia Thomas Center for Adoptive and Foster Families has 2,129 additional reasons to celebrate a fundraising event that raised close to $3,000 for the center over a five-week period.

Kicking off April 19, and culminating with a "coronation" May 23, the Royal Highness Race ended with the crowning of Cathy Smead as Princess of Brandon.

Smead raised $2,129 in her charity race, putting her at the top of a list of royal contenders. Her race was sponsored by GMS Landscaping. Smead said she raised her funds by auctioning off a gift basket, handing out flyers through GMS Landscaping and crafting jewelry for donations.

The other Royal Highness contenders, and now "court jesters," are Anthony Caligiure, sponsored by the Original Leena’s Chocolates; Angela Stone, sponsored by the Oaks Bar and Grill; and Simone Tolley, sponsored by Uncle Mike’s Smokehouse Grill.

Irma Davila, the self-proclaimed “Queen of Brandon,” and Ernest Hooper, the self-knighted king, had the honors of oversight. Honorary Mayor of Brandon Cami Gibertini was in attendance to help crown the new princess and welcome the new knight and ladies.

Meanwhile, the race for honorary mayor of Brandon is getting ready to kick off June 1 with a "Meet the Candidates" preview tonight, May 24, at the . The event is open to the public and scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m.

Each year through the month of June set about the land to raise money for their chosen charities, and for the Community Roundtable, which for decades has run both the mayor’s race and the annual Greater Brandon Fourth of July Parade.

Gibertini opened the April 19 ceremony for the Royal Highness Race as well. Both the opening and the coronation were  held at the Times building of Greater Brandon, at the Winthrop development in Riverview, at the southwest corner of Bloomingdale Avenue and Providence Road. (See details below.)

Unlike the mayor’s race, the royal race is for one charity only, the Sylvia Thomas Center, which is billed as the only agency in Hillsborough County funded to assist adoptive families after the adoption has been finalized. The agency provides support groups and services to adoptive families, including Teen Scene, which serves as a support group for adopted teenagers.

“We are the agency charged with keeping the ‘forever’ in forever families,” said Denise Jamieson, the group’s president and chief executive officer, and also a board member for the Community Roundtable.

According to center officials, the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County, the center’s prime source of funding since its inception in 2000, has changed priorities, cutting the Sylvia Thomas Center’s funding by $73,000 this fiscal year. No funding from the group is earmarked for next year.

Jamieson said at the May 23 event that Eckerd Community Alternatives is set to provide 60 percent of the funding needed and that it is up to the center to raise the remaining 40 percent.

“We look at the Royal Highness Race as a key fundraiser to enable us to continue to serve these hurting children and struggling families,” said Gerard Thomas, the chair of the center’s board, in a news release.  

The Royal Highness Race is a plug, too, for the Tampa Times Brandon Bureau, for which Hooper serves as editor, and for which Davila, founder of ID Marketing and Events, once worked in marketing.

Connecting business concerns to community and civic needs is a major underpinning of the mayor’s race as well, which each year brings “candidates” to the race who select charities to support. During the month of June, the candidates stage fundraising events to support their causes. Ten percent of the proceeds go to their sponsoring organization, 10 percent to the Community Roundtable, which in turn supports nonprofits thfroughout the year, and the remaining funds split among the selected charities.

The mayoral candidates raise their funds through June and up to the morning of the Fourth of July parade, where receipts are counted, by tradition, at the law offices of B. Lee Elam, at the corner of Lumsden Road and Parsons Avenue. The newly “elected” mayor is then presented to the community in the parade.

This year's candidates are Elam himself and GayLynn Love, of Love's Tire and Auto Service of Brandon.