BRADENTON, Fla. — A local restaurant chain wants members of the public to join them in giving back to a charity program that helps families and groups deal with the loss of a loved one, colleague, or friend.
Anna Maria Oyster Bar will hold its annual fundraiser all day Thursday at all four locations in the area. The restaurant will be donating $10 per sale of one of their signature recipes, it's Danish Baby Back Ribs. The recipe for that dish was created by the restaurant's original chef, Jerry Yettaw, fondly called 'Old Man' who died in 2012 after a bout with cancer.
"Jerry just trained everybody and he like grew people and developed people. He just had such a way with the staff that he was just the guy we looked up to," John Horne, President, Anna Maria Oyster Bar, said.
Yettaw was in hospice care provided by the Tidewell foundation. When he passed away, staff at Anna Maria Oyster Bar were devastated and Horne said he lost a friend. He and the team were able to find ways to cope through grief counseling services provided by Tidewell Foundation through its Blue Butterfly program.
"When you work together with people and they do become family, it's hard when you lose them, but it's great when people help you get it, and now we can celebrate forever," a tearful Horne said as he remembered his friend.
This is the 10th year that the restaurant chain has partnered with the Tidewell Foundation to raise funds to help support hospice care and provide free grief counseling to the community.
The celebration falls on Yettaw's birthday which is on Thursday, Feb. 24. Money raised will go toward paying for charity care for loved ones nearing the end of life who cannot afford hospice services, grief services to adults and children as well as other services offered through the Blue Butterfly program.
"It's really been a God-send for us as we have tried to navigate the whole grief process," Dan Powers of Manatee County said. "The analogy we use is that on September 15 we were on a known path and that day our path ended and we were lost in the woods."
Powers, who was a dad of three, lost his first son, 15-year-old Matthew, in 2018. Matthew was a rising sophomore at Lakewood Ranch High School when he and a friend died in a car crash.
"Matthew was the class clown, he was the kid who could walk into a room with 100 people, and 20 minutes later he would be friends with 98 of them," Powers said. "He was the one that would go to the people who were the outliers and he would bring them into the group. He would light up the room with his sense of humor and his compassion which really set him apart."
Matthew, who had a brother and a sister who were just 11 and 13, died just a week before his brother's birthday.
"Life-changing event for them, they still struggle at times but are in a much much better place than they would have been without the support of the Blue Butterfly Program," he said.
Donations and fundraisers help keep counseling, charity care and various services completely free to the community.
"That's more than $1.5 million each year in the four-county area and we're so lucky that donor support to the Tidewell foundation can offer that to people," Debbie Mason, President of Tidewell Foundation, said.
"More than $5 million each year needs to be raised for the charity care and free services in Southwest Florida," Mason said. "These types of fundraisers that businesses and individuals do for us are essential to our ability to meet our mission."
Over the years, the restaurant alone has raised more than $20,000 for the charity through its yearly event. Horne also expanded the event to include honoring his late mother whom he lost to a stroke three years ago.
"Hospice was a big part of her end of life after seeing how well they took care of Jerry and so many others," Horne said. "When they came in and helped get us through the time when my mother was passing, they were phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. The people that helped get us through were invaluable."
Diners who wish to participate in the fundraised can find Anna Maria Oyster Bar locations in Cortez, Pier, Landside, and Ellenton. The fundraiser also includes any take-out orders of the Danish Baby Back Ribs on Thursday.
"Everybody's gonna be eating ribs, you'll think that we're in a barbecue place," he said. "It's a birthday but it's also just a way of coming out and saying 'hey, does everybody know about this?' We're fortunate to be in such a great community, we have so many resources in our community and Tidewell is one of them."
Tidewell staff will also be on-site to provide more information about grief counseling services and charity hospice care.