By Kalli Abernathy

Embrace Florida Kids, a nonprofit faith-based organization dedicated to providing homes, healing and hope for vulnerable children and families across the Florida Panhandle, hosts its first-ever “A Walk Down Magnolia Lane” on Wednesday, April 10 at 5 p.m.

Presented by Shoreline Title, the evening celebrates the world’s greatest golf tournament and benefits vulnerable children in Northwest Florida.

Hosted at the Emerald Coast’s award-winning Regatta Bay Golf & Yacht Club, the event features a tournament-themed menu, golf-related activities with top-tier prizes for the winners, signature cocktails, outstanding company and music by Jacob Mohr. “There is a tremendous need in Northwest Florida for the services we provide for vulnerable children and families,” said Blake Horne, Ph.D., president and CEO, Embrace Florida Kids. “From group homes and foster homes to services like family preservation and crisis prevention, events like A Walk Down Magnolia Lane help close a critical gap by directly supporting our efforts to provide homes, healing and hope.”

Embrace Florida Kids has been operating in Northwest Florida since 1974 and is built on a 134-year foundation of caring for kids. What started as an orphanage in Summerfield, Alabama, in 1890 has grown into two dedicated organizations – Embrace Florida Kids and Embrace Alabama Kids – that serve thousands of children and families across two states. The organization meets kids experiencing neglect, abuse and abandonment where they are and provides them with an individualized support system to help them flourish.

The two branches of the organization are administratively connected and united in purpose but maintain in-market staff with close ties to the communities in which they live to better respond to needs with customized care. Ramsey Lawrence, Director of Development and Community Relations at Embrace Florida Kids is thrilled about the support from the community in which she lives and serves.

Having advocated for vulnerable kids for more than 130+ years, Embrace Florida Kids strives to pull together church, community and state resources to help connect children in need with stable, loving home environments. What began as a single campus-based ministry has grown into a network of programs in a four-county radius: Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton.

Currently, there are more children in Northwest Florida who are waiting for a foster family than the number of available licensed foster homes. There are just under 25,000 children in foster care, and less than 5,000 licensed foster homes. If each foster family in Florida took three children, there would still be 10,000 children in the state without a home. But these numbers do not include children who exist in homelessness outside the foster care system – and these numbers grow daily.

Funds raised from events like A Walk Down Magnolia Lane support foster parent recruitment, the ongoing operating expenses associated with the Milton Girls Home and the work Embrace Florida Kids is doing to create a residential home for foster care students attending the University of West Florida or Pensacola State College.

A Walk Down Magnolia Lane’s presenting sponsor, Shoreline Title, is joined by Tiger Sponsor Jim Shirley Enterprises; Palmer Sponsors Liufau McCall Insurance Group and Warren Averett; and Hogan Sponsors Abrams & Franklin Families, Abbott Martin Group, Chicken Salad Chick, Coastal Abode, David Ferner MD, PA, First United Methodist Church of Port St. Joe, florida haus, Hancock Whitney, The Odd Pelican Beer Company, S & S Golden Ventures, Tibbetts Family, Tallahassee Orthopedic Clinic, and United Methodist Foundation of Alabama and West Florida.

Tickets can be purchased at embraceflkids.org/wdml. To learn more about A Walk Down Magnolia Lane and Embrace Florida Kids, visit www.EmbraceFLKids.org or follow Embrace Florida Kids on social media at @EmbraceFLKids.

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