SARASOTA, Fla., April 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- One More Child hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony recently to celebrate the opening of the Vern and Sandy Buchanan Children’s Center in Palm Garden Village. The 8,500-square-foot facility will serve as a muti-purpose hub, connecting vulnerable children and struggling families to a variety of essential services and resources.
Located at the heart of One More Child’s Sarasota campus, the new space will be used to provide skills classes, mentoring sessions, foster care training and many other services. It will also hold community impact events, including packing meals for children in local schools, so they don’t go hungry over the weekend.
“This center is about more than a building — it is a promise,” Buchanan Foundation CEO Sandy Buchanan said in a statement. “A promise that when a child is hungry, a family is overwhelmed, or a brave single mom is rebuilding her life, they will not be alone. We are honored to partner with One More Child to create a place where compassion meets action, and where families can find real hope and a fresh start.”
In Sarasota County and the surrounding areas:
- Nearly 57,000 people are experiencing food insecurity.
- On any given day, roughly 400 children are in foster care or placement outside of their homes.
- More than 12,700 households with children are currently struggling to simply meet basic needs. Nearly half of these households are led by single moms.
“It’s all about serving one more,” said One More Child President and CEO Stephen Robert. “We are reaching foster children, hungry children, single moms, trafficking survivors and struggling families with hope and healing. But we cannot do this work without faithful partners like the Buchanan family. Congressman Vern Buchanan and Sandy Buchanan saw the potential of this vision and chose to invest in it. Their generosity helped turn vision into reality, creating a space that will serve families not just today, but for generations to come.”
The Palm Garden campus also includes eight homes for single mothers and their children as part of One More Child’s Single Moms program. The year-long program provides practical skills training, spiritual mentorship and an extended support system to help brave single moms build a path to self-sufficiency.
About One More Child:
One More Child operates in 29 states and 19 countries around the world, meeting the needs of foster children, hungry children, single moms, struggling families, sex-trafficked children and vulnerable adults. In 2024, One More Child provided direct services to 271,193 children and individuals while impacting an additional 100,692 individuals through advocacy, trainings, awareness and volunteering. One More Child provided more than 18.7 million meals nationally and globally. For more information, visit www.onemorechild.org. To learn more about the Sarasota campus expansion, visit www.onemorechild.org/sarasota.
Attachments
Joe McLeod One More Child joe.mcleod@onemorechild.org
