The heart of our mission is to find the amazing souls that breathe life into our communities. In the recent weeks, we’ve had the privilege to connect with some incredible artists, creatives, entrepreneurs and rabble rousers and we can’t begin to express how impressed we are with the incredible group below.
Ashlee Marie
Ashlee Marie has navigated her share of profound challenges, which have shaped her into the impactful coach she is today. Her experiences with trauma and the journey toward healing have given her a unique, compassionate insight into the term, “growing pains!” These personal obstacles have not only refined her understanding of resilience and strength but have also deepened her commitment to helping others find purpose through their own struggles. Read more>>
Eleonora Tasalova
By profession, I am a radiologist and worked in a hospital for many years. I’m a mother of two wonderful daughters and a proud grandmother since 2011. After moving to the United States, I wasn’t able to continue my medical career — the process of certification here proved too complex. From that point on, I devoted my time to taking care of my mother and helping my daughter raise my granddaughter. Read more>>
Marimar “Mari” Abston
That vision inspired me to open my own practice here in Jacksonville. Today, I specialize in corrective skincare, offering treatments such as facials, microneedling, dermaplaning, enzyme peels, and more. My focus is always on skin health and long term results. Being bilingual also allows me to connect with more women in my community, making skincare approachable, inclusive, and accessible. Glowing Skin Solutions has been built on trust, results, and relationships and I’m so grateful for the path that brought me here. Read more>>
Daniel & Julie Ryan
To combine my love for pizza with a desire to give back, I launched *Just Off The Beach Pizza*. Over the past year, we’ve hosted 6+ pop-up events to raise money for local charities. Our initial pop-ups were a hit, bringing in around \$6000 for various causes. However, as the demand grew, we realized we couldn’t keep up with the setup in our driveway. That’s when we partnered with Lauren at Brewhound Dog Park, securing a more stable location for our events. Read more>>
Deborah McDuffie
Billy Davis, the music director at McCann, invented the now famous “song form jingle”, where the first forty seconds of the jingle is an original song that dovetails into the product’s jingle, and together we became known for these creative sicty second jingles that the consumer mistook for records, until the product was mentioned at the end. In 1981 I was hired by Mingo Jones Advertising, a new Black agency that had been awarded the Miller Brewing Company Black Consumer Market account, as it’ Music Director. My career skyrocketed in the advertising and record industries. Most of my campaigns were “celebrity driven”, and as I became friends with many of these artists, my career expanded to include producing records as well. Read more>>
Haley Davis
In high school, that love for art started to take shape. I studied classical art, learning form, light, and structure. I took AP Art, AP Art History, three years of film photography, and spent countless hours on yearbook—where I discovered graphic design. It felt like the perfect balance: I could paint and tell stories visually without the mess. That foundation eventually led me to the University of Central Florida, where I studied Emerging Media Management, a program that blended creativity with business strategy. Read more>>
Keri Lyons
God took my ashes and gave me beauty. He delivered me from addiction, provided for me when I had nothing, and blessed my business in ways I could never have imagined. Today, I am humbled to say that Bikini Moon Waxing Co. has grown to over 374 repeat clients and is generating a six-figure income each year. Read more>>
Sarah Taitano
Because 20 years ago, Digital Art was not something that was a “successful” career choice- I chose to pursue the better thing – and that was saving the world. I became a social worker specializing in mental health, human rights advocacy and spent 8 years in Crisis & Trauma services. For years, I’ve been creating graphic art for my personal use, for non-profits with agencies I was a part of or collaborated with, community events, as well as clients who sought my services whether it be custom logos, small business palettes, and other requests such as tattoos. Read more>>
Tiffany Katz
I was in the air force reserves at the time and took a lot of pictures with my point-and-shoot digital camera while deployed overseas. I really enjoyed it in my downtime. When I returned home I was like that’s it, I’m done, and I took my GI bill and went to Daytona State College as a full time student. I started out focusing in portrait and fashion photography and admittedly I was quite good at it, but my passions shifted toward nature and landscape photography around the time my father became ill with Alzheimer’s disease. He passed away only a couple of years later. Read more>>
Julie Marco
Surprisingly, after a year long build out, which was difficult. but when we opened the doors, it was gangbusters. There was definitely a need in the community for this type of service. We offered a boutique style of dog care and the community of Jacksonville Beach and surrounding areas really supported us.. we currently employ about 35 employees and have relatively low turnover. I feel like we’ve created a very good culture at our business and our five star reviews let’s us know that we’re doing the right thing for the dogs and their owners. We opened in sept 2107 Read more>>
Sumo Tre
Section 8 baby from the soul city of Memphis, Tennessee. I’m a jack-of-all-trades—songwriting, mixing, mastering, DJ and even throwing events. I never waited for opportunity, I built my own. Back in 2015, I started out as a starving artist in the SoundCloud scene and got some traction with songs hitting the 10,000s. From there, I pivoted into throwing events and building a collective called FohShop. We hosted open mics and parties, giving artists in my city a stage and helping them develop their sound and presence—right up until Covid shut everything down. Read more>>
