Months after he covered the costs for Sarasota County’s 211 helpline service that county commissioners rejected, attorney and developer Hugh Culverhouse Jr. is stepping up to do the same for the popular Embracing Our Differences exhibition. He called the commissioners’ recent decision not to rejecting a grant to the organization “illogical.”
Culverhouse and his wife, Eliza, announced Monday that they are donating $107,643 to Embracing Our Differences to cover the loss of funding from both Sarasota County and the state of Florida in the last month.
County commissioners last week eliminated $46,696 in funding for Embracing Our Differences from the $2.1 million it approved from tourist tax grants. The commission also vetoed $27,000 to community radio station WSLR and $40,000 to the Chalk Festival.
The funding cuts came a month after Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed $32 million in arts and culture grants, including $60,947 that the Legislature had approved for Embracing Our Differences.
Each winter on Sarasota’s Bayfront, Embracing Our Differences displays 50 billboard-sized posters of images created by adults and children and matches them with messages that are intended to inspire positivity and a better understanding of people around the world.
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Culverhouse said it “struck me as totally illogical that you would cut money from an organization that helps so many people. Not only does it help the town financially because it brings in so many people and so many artists, but it also brings everybody together through the medium of art, and it is therefore extremely important that we do it.”
Sarah Wertheimer, executive director of Embracing Our Differences said the gift “means we’ll be able to not only continue our exhibition and education program but we can continue expanding them in our community and beyond.”
In addition to the Culverhouse gift, Wertheimer said she expects her organization will exceed a $25,000 challenge gift set up by volunteers with the organization.
“We encourage the community to continue to provide support because we know we’re not just dealing with the shortfall we have this year with the canceling of funding from the state and county,” she said. “We are foreseeing the situation for the next few years. We hope not, but we want to be prepared.”
In 2023, a vandal destroyed one of the billboards by slashing the art, and two weeks later officials at State College of Florida canceled a one-month display of the exhibition after the Embracing Our Differences refused to remove art that includes the words “diversity,” “inclusion,” “justice” and “equality” because they might make the exhibit run counter to new state regulations.
In March, Culverhouse provided what he called a one-time gift of $109,000 to United Way Suncoast to cover funding that was cut by the County Commission for the 211 helpline service, which he said was important for the mentally ill and elderly population.
In an interview, Culverhouse said future gifts to Embracing Our Differences will depend on what future commissions do. Commission Chairman Mike Moran, who is precluded by term limits from seeking reelection “will be gone,” he said. “Mike seems to be the spear chucker on all of these cuts. If it dictates that I continue doing it, fine. Sarasota is known for its arts, and I’m going to support that. ”
Culverhouse also made up a $150,000 shortfall in public funding to maintain the Sarasota County Comprehensive Treatment Court program, which is designed to divert individuals with mental health disorders from jails into treatment programs.
Culverhouse is CEO of Palmer Ranch Holdings Ltd., in Sarasota and has donated tens of millions of dollars to higher education, mental health and social welfare efforts. Eliza Culverhouse has been an active supporter of the arts, including Embracing Our Differences, the Sarasota Ballet and the dance program at the University of Alabama, where a new performing arts center has been named in her honor.
In June, Culverhouse also donated $500,000 to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign after the former president was convicted of 34 counts of fraud by a New York court. He said the case was politically motivated.
“I don’t care if Trump is a Republican or a Democrat,” he told the Herald-Tribune in an email. “The judicial system cannot be used as a political tool. The Democrats crossed the line in this persecution, the same I would say if the Republicans treated President Biden this way.”
In 2020, following the death of U.S. Rep John Lewis, Culverhouse donated $1.1 million to the University of Florida law school to fund scholarships to graduates of historically black colleges and universities. And in 2022, he donated $1 million to the UNICEF USA’s Protect Children of Ukraine fund and took out a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal encouraging others to do the same.
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