Love Sanibel Back gathering scheduled for Nov. 1 – SANIBEL-CAPTIVA

The Love Sanibel Back rooftop kickoff began an incredible summer for island businesses.
PHOTO PROVIDED

By MEGHAN BRADBURY

mbradbury@breezenewspapers.comThe finale of the 2026 Love Sanibel Back will offer a larger space for everyone to celebrate the success of an idea that has grown since its inception.

With another Love Sanibel Back wrapping up — the biggest community gathering yet — will be held from noon to 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, at the Sanibel Recreation Center, 3880 Sanibel-Captiva Road.

“We are grateful to the city to offer that. It provides more space and ability to spread out and do a variety of things,” St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church Director of Communications Sue Van Oss said.

The gathering is free and open to everyone thanks to the generosity of their sponsors: A Bit of Bailey’s, Pinocchio’s Original Italian Ice Cream, the City of Sanibel, the Charitable Foundation of the Islands, Florida Trust Wealth Management, BreakAway Vacation Properties, Periwinkle Park, and Bank of the Islands.

The gathering will offer free hot dogs and ice cream provided by Bailey’s and Pinocchio’s Original Italian Ice Cream.

“Donna (Puma) is going all out — ice cream and topping bar, and she is having Love Sanibel Back decorated cookies and a huge candy tower,” Van Oss said.

The event will also have various community organizations with booths and interactive activities. A photo booth and craft activities are also part of the celebration.

The Sanibel School students are putting on a “What I Love About Sanibel” art show during the event.

“All 180 kids will have their featured art about what they love about Sanibel. It will be displayed throughout the rec center — the kid’s perspective of what they love about Sanibel. The whole school is participating in it,” Van Oss said.

At 1 p.m. Mayor Mike Miller will give some remarks before The Sanibel School Seahorse Chorale performs.

“A lot of businesses are providing door prizes,” Van Oss said, adding that everyone receives a ticket when they come in to be entered into the raffle prize drawing.

She said after Hurricane Ian, they began rebuilding their campus with the Thrift Store facility being the first to be completed. She said they decided to open it as a gathering place for the island.

The facility became the location for worship services, as well as a support for FISH, Santiva Islanders, small businesses and a cooling station for the island the first summer of 2023. The main building opened around Christmas 2023.

“We took a survey of business leaders and officials on the island — what can we do next to support our island coming back,” Van Oss said. “The idea for doing a summer program to support the businesses was at the top of the list for a lot of people.”

Linda Linsmayer came up with Love Sanibel Back, which took off.

“She really saw it as more than a marketing slogan — a longing for all of us to try to gain our community back,” Van Oss said. “How can we express our gratitude for being here on Sanibel? We do that by supporting business owners.”

Love Sanibel Back has graced the islands now for three summers — 2024, 2025, and 2026.

“We have had a summer long program to support the businesses, the nonprofits, and bring the community together to realize that Sanibel is a special place,” she said.

Love Sanibel Back has also attracted off island traffic as it shares that Sanibel is back, alive and businesses are open.

Weekly themes have become part of Love Sanibel Back, such as the Shell Stroll, which Van Oss said went beyond their expectation.

“We handed out 600 maps. We had no idea. That wasn’t all the people — some took one map for their family. People are craving the desire to come together and support our island,” she said.

Other themes included beach kindness week — picking up 10 pieces of trash, Christmas in July and gratitude week — sharing a thank you note with a UPS driver, firefighter, or dropping off cookies to your favorite clerk. There was also a theme of sunrise and sunset week — capturing the sunrise and sunset and sharing the photograph on social media.

“This year we tried to encourage to eat, shop, and play local, but also do things that didn’t cost anything monetarily,” Van Oss said.

This year, Van Oss said, they took it one step further, as they really wanted to try and measure how Love Sanibel Back has helped the island. Business owners were asked to take a survey to understand the impact through numbers.

“Over 85% of the businesses said it had a positive impact on them this summer. All of them said they had an excellent, very good, or good experience,” she said. “It noticeably increased their traffic, their sales, their visibility, which is what we wanted for sure.”

What stood out even more, was the top response — 61% had an increased sense of community, with the next responses increased foot traffic, greater connection with other businesses, and increased awareness.

“We noticed an increase in traffic from the east coast of Florida and greater beyond Fort Myers and Cape Coral, which was fantastic,” Van Oss said. “It’s really helping to spread the word that Sanibel is back.”

With so much success, she said Love Sanibel Back has become more than she can handle individually, so next year a steering committee will be formed to take on the responsibility of putting it on next summer.

“The growth has been exponential every year. It is a great thing, especially in the slower time of the year. To hear the comments of so many businesses saying they are having their best day and it validated for them, their decision to rebuild on the island and they have this amount of support,” Van Oss said. “To us, it is well worth it. People ask, why would a church take this on and do all this hard work? For us, it is exactly what a church should be doing — 100% engaged in their community and supporting their community in whatever way they can. It’s a natural reflex to do Love Sanibel Back every year.”