Vero Beach Nonprofit Raises $100K to Beautify City Streets, Outpacing City Budget 10-to-1

Three Vero Beach women launched their beautification nonprofit from a carport in the rain, uncertain whether anyone would show up. Three years later, Green Heart Tribe has outspent the city's entire annual beautification budget more than tenfold.

The group has raised more than $100,000 since its founding, according to public records and organizational documents — compared to the roughly $10,000 the city allocates each year for beautification. That gap, organizers say, is exactly why they exist.

"We noticed our town looked a little tired," said Jordan Wakeland, Green Heart Tribe's president. "When you travel and you see flowers in New York or small towns all over the U.S., you think, how did they do that? And we haven't been able to get there yet."

The nonprofit's fingerprints are already visible along Ocean Drive and Sexton Plaza, where funding from the group has paid for palm trees, fresh paint, lighting, flowers and decorative planters. The transformation is modest by some measures — a planter here, a light pole there — but in a beach corridor that draws tourists and retirees, the cumulative effect is hard to miss.

"This is a resort town," said Deana Marchant, a vice president of the organization. "We want the people who do come here to feel special. We don't necessarily want it to be bigger, just a little more special where we are."

The group's first fundraiser, a carport gathering that Cindy O'Dare, another vice president, described as an experiment, drew an unexpected crowd and generated $37,000 in a single night despite a rainstorm. That event grew into an annual women's hat luncheon now held at McKee Botanical Gardens.

"We had a huge turnout and raised $37,000 in the pouring rain," O'Dare said.

When organizers first reviewed the city's beautification line item, the contrast became clear. "They showed us, this is our budget, and you realize, wow," O'Dare said.

The group's next project targets Humiston Park near Ocean Drive, where hanging plants on light poles are planned. Organizers also say they hope to eventually extend their work beyond the beachside corridor into mainland Vero Beach — a signal that the nonprofit's ambitions are growing faster than any city budget line is likely to follow.

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