Tidewell Foundation - Lakeside Legacy Walk
On a Sarasota calendar crowded with costume parties and Halloween theatrics, the Tidewell Foundation’s Lakeside Legacy Walk offers a quieter kind of gathering—one shaped by memory, gratitude, and the
By Edit Sarasota Staff
On a Sarasota calendar crowded with costume parties and Halloween theatrics, the Tidewell Foundation’s Lakeside Legacy Walk offers a quieter kind of gathering—one shaped by memory, gratitude, and the enduring ways people remain part of a community.
Set against the water at Nathan Benderson Park, the event invites participants to consider what a legacy looks like in ordinary life: a story retold at the dinner table, a lesson passed between generations, a favorite song that brings someone instantly back. The walk’s name suggests movement with purpose, an opportunity to honor lives and relationships while sharing the path with others who understand the importance of remembrance.
That spirit is closely connected to the work of Tidewell, the region’s longtime provider of hospice and palliative care. Through clinical services, grief support, and care for patients and families facing serious illness, Tidewell has become a steady presence in Sarasota and the surrounding counties. The Tidewell Foundation helps sustain that mission through philanthropy, supporting the resources and programs that make compassionate care available when families need it most.
For Sarasota, the Lakeside Legacy Walk also reflects something distinctive about local life: our most meaningful public events often unfold outdoors, near the water, where personal experience and civic connection have room to meet. Nathan Benderson Park has become one of the area’s signature gathering places, hosting rowing competitions, festivals, races, and community celebrations on its expansive shoreline. Its broad paths and open views offer a fitting setting for an event devoted to the traces people leave behind—and the people who carry those traces forward.
The timing adds an intriguing counterpoint. Held on Halloween, the walk arrives on a day associated with costumes, ghosts, and the turning of the season, but its focus is less on spectacle than on presence. It makes space for reflection without asking anyone to leave joy at the door. In that sense, the event belongs fully to Sarasota: generous, outdoors-oriented, and attuned to the ways celebration and remembrance can coexist.
The Tidewell Foundation’s Lakeside Legacy Walk takes place Saturday, October 31, 2026, at Nathan Benderson Park Conservancy, 5851 Nathan Benderson Circle, Sarasota. It is an occasion to gather beside the lake, honor the people whose lives continue to shape our own, and take a meaningful step forward together.