Gulf Coast Life

We continue our year-long celebration of the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act through our “Move to Include” initiative by learning about a nonprofit called Residential Options of Florida, or ROOF. Its mission is to empower individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to successfully obtain and maintain affordable and inclusive housing of their choice.

We continue our year-long celebration of the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act through our “Move to Include” initiative by learning about a nonprofit called Residential Options of Florida, or ROOF. Its mission is to empower individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to successfully obtain and maintain affordable and inclusive housing of their choice.

A new podcast series produced by WMFE in Orlando, in partnership with the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, explores the history of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, or CERP, which was signed into law 20 years ago in the final days of the Clinton Administration. DRAINED is reported and hosted by WMFE environmental reporter, Amy Green, and edited by Trevor Aaronson and Matthew Peddie. We’re presenting the first episode today, called “A river runs dry.”

In 1926 a Black man named Henry Patterson who was working on road construction in LaBelle was wrongfully accused of assaulting a white woman and then lynched by dozens of white residents. The accusations were proven false, including being refuted by the woman, and 14 white men were arrested for his murder, and a grand jury trial began in Fort Myers. But, the trial fell apart and nobody was indicted in the end.

There is a new wellness pharmacy coming to the Fort Myers Dunbar community later this year thanks to a $270-thousand dollar investment from the Southwest Florida Community Foundation. Sozo Wellness Pharmacy is a lifelong dream of 41 year old Dr. Shadreka McIntosh, a fourth generation Dunbar resident. She joins us to tell us about her plans for the future.

Ever since the beginning of the modern concept of "science" there have been people who denied certain things despite evidence that they are true or factual. From evolution by natural selection to human-caused climate change, and more recently things like COVID-19 and mask effectiveness and vaccine safety, some people refuse to believe what scientists and researchers reach consensus on.

Hundreds of thousands of Florida children have not been in a classroom for nearly a year. They've been learning through a screen — or not showing up for classes at all — because of the pandemic.

On this episode of the Gulf Coast Life Book Club, Robert Jones, Jr., talks about his New York Times bestselling novel THE PROPHETS and Justine Cowan discusses her memoir THE SECRET LIFE OF DOROTHY SOAMES.

We get a preview of a new statewide Florida Public Media effort called 'Class of COVID-19,' A Look At The Pandemic's Impact On Education which launches next Monday, Feb. 8. In it, public media journalists from around Florida explore the high costs of the pandemic for students who already faced obstacles to success in school before COVID-19 upended public education. We talk with the project’s editor, Jessica Bakeman, education reporter at WLRN in Miami.

We learn about local efforts to support gun violence survivors, and steps being taken to change laws for measures like requiring background checks on all gun sales, by talking with two members of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. It's a national non-partisan, grassroots movement of Americans fighting for public safety measures that can help protect people from gun violence.