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Dewey Sanders, Fran Fenning and Mary Chris Sanders at the Uncommon Friends event. -STEPHANIE DAVIS \/ FLORIDA WEEKLY<\/p>\n
I found myself strolling around downtown on a recent Tuesday, enjoying some thrifting at my favorite Goodwill Boutique and the Arts for ACT Gallery\/gift shop, when I was suddenly compelled to phone a friend, \u201cIs there some kind of festival or something happening downtown that I don\u2019t know about? It\u2019s so crowded on First Street, I can barely get through the throngs!\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cNope,\u201d my friend answered. \u201cIt\u2019s just season.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cBut\u2026but, it\u2019s 2 p.m. on a Tuesday,\u201d I stammered. \u201cThese people should be at work.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re on vacation!\u201d my friend laughed.\n<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve heard that due to the economy and such, not as many folks are rushing down to these parts this year \u2013 but you wouldn\u2019t know it by looking around. I mean, when I must wait 30 minutes in line to get into a dressing room at Goodwill, you know they\u2019re here. Don\u2019t they have Goodwills in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana? I guess previously loved Florida clothes are something of a novelty. Either that, or there IS a problem with the economy and our visitors saved all their pennies for airfare and lodging and can only afford to shop at Goodwill.\n<\/p>\n
So, while I like to keep my downtown Goodwill a secret, I will say to our snowbird friends that our little boutique has all sorts of brand new fun Fort Myers souvenirs like t-shirts and tote bags and more. Just stay away from the cocktail dress section and we\u2019ll all get along just fine.\n<\/p>\n
Architecture, art and awesomeness <\/p>\n
It was another busy week with opening nights, events, girls\u2019 nights and more, but my favorite gathering was for the Uncommon Friends Foundation and happened at the absolutely stunning home of interior designer Dwayne Bergmann and Kyle Barrett, where they hosted historic preservationist and author Dr. Wayne Wood and his wife Lana Shuttleworth, an accomplished artist. The couple came down from their home in Jacksonville, as Wayne gave a poolside chat about one of the Uncommon Friends Foundation\u2019s tenants, which is preserving history. It was a fascinating evening as Wayne gave a presentation about Frank Lloyd Wright, \u201ckit homes\u201d from the 1920s, and historic Florida architecture.\n<\/p>\n
Fun fact: There\u2019s a replica of Fort Myers\u2019 own Langford-Kingston Home, also built in the early 1900s, in Jacksonville \u2014 and that\u2019s where Wayne and Lana live. While they were here, the couple got to tour the Burroughs Home, the Fenning home, and, of course, the Langford-Kingston Home.\n<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, all of us guests at the event got to tour the Bergmann\/Barrett home with all its many beautiful warm touches and it\u2019s sumptuous \u2014 yet comfy, welcoming vibe. I loved seeing Alex Bremner, Gina Sabiston, Craig Dorfman, Mary Love with Gary Griffin, Kevin and Cindy Pierce, architect Joyce Owens, Darla and Jeff Bonk, Scott and Kristalyn Atwood, and Stefanie Ink with her dad, James. Such a perfect event \u2014 both fun AND educational.\n<\/p>\n
Soup kitchen benefit around the corner<\/p>\n
And speaking of Stefanie Ink, she and her amazing team at Community Cooperative are knee deep in planning for the Sam Galloway & Friends Soup Kitchen Fundraiser happening on Thursday, March 5th. I always look forward to this one because it\u2019s fun, casual, the food is down-home southern cooking, and the cause is incredibly deserving of our support \u2013 especially these days. To learn more about this always-packed event, go to communitycooperative.com<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n Stephanie Davis is a recovering girl-about-town formerly known as the Downtown Diva. A nearly native Southwest Floridian, when she\u2019s not photographing events for Florida Weekly, she\u2019s perfectly content to stay at home binging Netflix with her husband and three cats, Tennessee, Lilibet, and Jack.\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dewey Sanders, Fran Fenning and Mary Chris Sanders at the Uncommon Friends event. -STEPHANIE DAVIS \/ FLORIDA WEEKLY…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-168022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}