The strength of this community has never come from any one of us. It comes from what happens when we work together, when our clubs and neighbors line up behind a shared purpose and multiply what each of us could do alone.
This month’s update is a celebration of exactly that. You will meet the Azario Run/Walk Club walking beside us toward the 25th anniversary of September 11, the Azario Genealogy Club taking on the heart of our Wreaths Across America effort, the Bavis Foundation book drive our community answered in force, and a community painting itself pink this fall in the fight against breast cancer. Different missions, one spirit. Here is what we are building together.
Azario Run/Walk Club, September 2026
Check the Team Reach Events Calendar for sign-ups and updates. Not yet on Team Reach? Join today using code AZNIS4VETS.
The Azario Run/Walk Club
Some of the best things we do at Neighbors in Service, we do not do alone. Our work with the Azario Run/Walk Club is a good example of why. Together, we take something this community already loves - moving together - and point it toward the people who served. What began with a single event has grown into a set of shared traditions, with more on the way.
Three of those traditions now anchor the year, and we are just getting started.
The first began on Memorial Day weekend. On May 23, nearly 40 Azario neighbors joined hundreds of others for the 11th Annual SRQ Vets Memorial Hike in Sarasota, and our NIS table helped us connect with even more of the local veteran community. With roughly 500 people there, the day raised funds and awareness for the vital work SRQ Vets does for local veterans. More than that, it gave our community a place to come together, honor the fallen, and remember what Memorial Day is really about. It is a fixture on our calendar now, one we return to every year.
The second is this month, and it carries special weight. On Friday, September 11, we walk together for the 9/11 Remembrance Walk, and this year marks the 25th anniversary of that morning. We gather at 7:45 AM at the Wellness Center parking lot for a two-mile walk, pausing for a moment of silence at the Barrel House at 8:46 AM, the minute the first tower was struck, before coming together afterward at Toasted Cafe. Twenty-five years on, we walk so that a generation who was not yet born in 2001 still learns what this day means.
The third takes us beyond our own county, and it is nearly here. On Saturday, September 12, a group of us drives to Fort Myers for the Tunnel to Towers 5K. T2T was born out of 9/11, and its work now includes a national push to end veteran homelessness that has reached our own backyard. The foundation is building the Bradenton Veterans Village right down the road, a new campus for veterans experiencing homelessness. Supporting T2T is not an abstract cause here. It is a neighbor. We are also in early conversations about bringing a T2T race home to Lakewood Ranch and Bradenton in 2027.
Three traditions, and more, are taking shape. If you would like to be part of any of it, join the Azario Run/Walk Club on Team Reach with code EARWC24. For the Fort Myers trip on the 12th, watch for registration and carpool details. Walk, run, remember. Stronger together.
The Azario Genealogy Club
Last month we told you a new collaboration was beginning. This month we can tell you it is off to a wonderful start. About 15 neighbors came out for the Azario Genealogy Club’s kickoff on August 11, and the enthusiasm in the room was exactly what this work needs.
Here is the mission, and it is the reason we believe this collaboration may become the heart of our Wreaths Across America effort. Before a wreath can be laid on a veteran’s grave and a name spoken aloud, someone has to know the name and know where the grave is. That is the work the Genealogy Club has taken on.
The focus for 2026 is clear: our two local cemeteries, Mansion Memorial Park and Old Memphis Cemetery, and every veteran resting in them. For each one, the goal is to have their information recorded on Find a Grave and their grave located, with a photograph of the headstone whenever possible, so we know exactly who is there and where they lie.
It is already moving. Since the kickoff, the team has developed a practical plan with both cemeteries, and the fieldwork is beginning: volunteers heading out to find plots and take photographs. At Old Memphis, that means walking every veteran’s grave, adding a photograph and a GPS location, and mapping the site so no one is ever lost again.
It is patient, ground-level work, and it is the foundation on which the rest depends. Once we know every veteran and every grave, we can place a wreath for each of them this December, and be certain not one is missed.
You do not need any experience to take part, just an interest in history and a desire to honor those who served. Join the Azario Genealogy Club on Team Reach with code FamTree25.
The Bavis Foundation
Some collaborations are ours to lead. Others are ours to amplify. When the Bavis Foundation came to us this summer, this was the second kind, and our community answered beautifully.
The Bavis Foundation has a history of running book drives with Operation Paperback, a national nonprofit that has shipped more than 2.9 million books since 1999 to troops overseas, veterans, and military families here at home. This summer, Bavis was asked to supply 700 books for military children at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, ahead of their family unit days. We were glad to be asked to help, and we put the call out to Azario.
You showed up, the way you always do. Together, our community donated more than 100 high-quality children’s books, along with cash to buy more, and helped the Bavis Foundation reach its goal. Those books are now on their way across the Pacific, a small piece of home for children whose parents serve.
The Bavis Foundation carries out this kind of work all year, and we are proud to stand with them. You can follow what they do at bavisfoundation.org. And to everyone in Azario who gave: thank you. This is exactly what we mean when we talk about a community that shows up.
Azario Think Pink
There is hardly one among us who has not been touched by breast cancer. A mother, a sister, a friend, a neighbor. That is why, when Azario comes together each fall to fight it, Neighbors in Service is proud to stand with our community.
This October, we are painting Azario pink. All month long, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, neighbors and clubs across the community will gather for a series of fundraising events: MahJong and Bunco, pickleball and tennis, bowling, and a Girlfriends’ Happy Hour, culminating on November 2 with the signature Think Pink Golf Tournament. Last year the community raised $64,000. This year the goal is $100,000, and 100 percent of every dollar goes to Moffitt Cancer Center in support of breast cancer research and care.
For Neighbors in Service, this fight is close to our mission. Breast cancer affects the women who serve and those who have served. Among active-duty women ages 40 to 59, it has been reported at rates roughly 15 percent higher for White servicewomen and 17 percent higher for Black servicewomen than for comparable women in the general population. Women veterans need accessible screening, diagnosis, treatment, and long-term support, and the VA provides mammograms, imaging, genetic counseling, treatment, and navigation, including breast health services and risk assessments for eligible veterans under the SERVICE Act. Standing with Think Pink is another way we support the women of our military community.
However you like to spend a fall afternoon, there is a way to take part, and each one helps. Come play, come cheer, sponsor an event, or give directly. Watch Team Reach and the Paint Azario Pink calendar for the full schedule.
Let's Build Together. These four are just the beginning. Every one of them started the same way, with two groups realizing they could do more together than apart. If your Azario club or group shares our values, we would love to find ways to work together. Let's talk anytime at drjack@neighborsinservice.org.
Wreaths Across America
If the collaborations above show what our community can do together, Wreaths Across America is where much of it comes home. It is one of our Honor Pillar Partners and the signature initiative that ties this work together: the genealogy research, the cemetery mapping, and, on one December morning, a wreath on the grave of every veteran we can reach.
Here is where sponsorship stands. Historic Old Memphis Cemetery is fully funded, with a wreath for every veteran resting there. Our focus now is Mansion Memorial Park, where 1,303 wreaths have been sponsored and a few hundred more are still needed. If you are able to sponsor a wreath this year, Mansion is where it will do the most good.
And the effort keeps growing, in a good way. As the Azario Genealogy Club maps Mansion, we are finding more veterans to honor than our original goal ever accounted for. The need is only getting bigger, and every wreath counts.
On Saturday, December 19, National Wreaths Across America Day, we will gather at both Mansion and Old Memphis to lay the wreaths, speak the names, and remember. Mark the date. There will be a place for you.
Each wreath is $17, and every one says the same two words: Remember me.
Read our past month’s insight article to learn more about the ways we are honoring those who have served and preserving their stories.
One Flight Jacket, Two Headstones
New Memphis Cemetery, Palmetto. One of the two headstones in this story.
Our Pillar Partners
Neighbors in Service is proud to stand behind a group of organizations doing extraordinary work for veterans, military families, and first responders. Each has its own home on our Substack, with a direct way to help, whether that is giving, volunteering, or becoming a mentor.
Every link routes straight to the organization, and Neighbors in Service never handles the funds, so 100 percent of your support reaches the cause. Meet them all, and find the one that speaks to you.
Around the Community
Beyond our own programs, we help spread the word for the veteran service organizations doing great work across our region. Two events are worth your calendar right now:
SRQ Vets Hibachi for Heroes — Saturday, November 7. An outdoor hibachi dinner supporting local veterans. Reserve at Hibachi.SRQVets.org.
VVAS Marine Corps Birthday Ball — Saturday, November 14, at the Palmetto Marriott. A community evening benefiting Our Next Mission and its work housing at-risk veterans. Details at vvaservices.org/events.
Coming Soon on Substack: A Conversation with Tim Brown
As we mark the 25th anniversary of September 11, we have something special coming to our Substack. Later this month, our in-depth article will feature a conversation with Tim Brown, a retired FDNY firefighter who survived that day, about his powerful new book, The Greatest Love.
The book is about what Tim carried out of the worst day imaginable, and how any of us can live with courage, purpose, and love after loss. It carries a foreword by Admiral William H. McRaven. We think it will stay with you.
Follow us on Substack so you do not miss it.
Stay Connected
Two easy ways to be part of what comes next.
Azario neighbors, join us on Team Reach. This is where it all happens. You will get weekly notice of what is coming up, and it is where you sign up to take part, from the 9/11 walk to the Fort Myers race to the wreath effort at Mansion. If you want to show up and lend a hand, this is the channel to be on. Use code AZNIS4VETS.
Help us grow the circle. You are already reading this, so you are already with us. The best thing you can do now is bring someone else along. Forward this update to a neighbor and invite them to subscribe, and follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/neighborsInservice, then share a post now and then. Every new person is one more neighbor ready to stand with our veterans, military families, and first responders.
You can always reach us directly at drjack@neighborsinservice.org with any questions or ideas.
Neighbors in Service is a 501(c)(3) Florida Nonprofit (EIN: 33-1691201). Educate · Strengthen · Honor. 🌐 www.neighborsinservice.org | 📧 info@neighborsinservice.org | 📱 Team Reach Code: AZNIS4VETS | 👍 facebook.com/neighborsInservice
