Sunshine Community Harvest was created from the merger of two community‑powered organizations with deep local roots: Community Harvest SRQ (formerly Transition Sarasota) and Sunshine Community Compost.

A Global Movement

The first branch of our history began in 2010, when Don Hall brought the global Transition Towns Movement to Sarasota after his work with Transition Colorado, the first official Transition initiative in North America. Inspired by permaculture educator Rob Hopkins, Don launched Transition Sarasota to help the community build resilience through local food systems, sustainability education, and hands-on action. That same year, the organization introduced the Suncoast Gleaning Project, which quickly became one of the region’s most impactful food‑recovery efforts. Over the next decade, Transition Sarasota—later Community Harvest SRQ—expanded its programs through Eat Local Week, the Eat Local Resource Guide, and partnerships that strengthened Sarasota’s local food network.

Transforming Scraps into Soil

A second branch took root in 2017, when Manatee County native Tracie Troxler founded Sunshine Community Compost after 17 years in the San Francisco Bay Area working in community health, environmental justice, renewable energy, and regenerative agriculture. Her experiences—from supporting vulnerable populations to facilitating neighborhood‑scale solar installations to practicing closed‑loop farming—shaped her belief that composting is a powerful tool for cultural and ecological transformation. Sunshine Community Compost brought composting directly into neighborhoods, schools, congregations, workplaces, and parks, helping residents rethink “waste” and turning food scraps into soil that nourished local ecosystems, diverting more than 435,000 pounds of organic material from the landfill.

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An Intentional Evolution

For years, the two organizations worked independently but in paralle, one focused on food recovery and local food systems, the other on composting, soil health, and waste reduction. Their missions, values, and community goals naturally aligned. In 2025, a joint task force began exploring a shared future, and in February 2026, both boards voted unanimously to merge, forming Sunshine Community Harvest.

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Today

Sunshine Community Harvest carries forward the deep roots, community partnerships, and hands-on programs built by both founders and both organizations, united in a shared commitment to cultivating a resilient, equitable, and regenerative local food network.