Orange Blossom Award: The Grant Survivors
by Avery Anderson
This one isn’t for a single person.
It’s for the spreadsheet warriors.
The midnight submitters.
The folks who stared at a score they’d never been punished for before and thought, Wait — what?
This year, Florida’s arts funding didn’t just shift.
It lurched.
A higher score threshold quietly turned solid applications into dead ends. A changed rubric arrived with the clock already ticking. And suddenly, organizations that had done everything “right” were left explaining to boards, artists, and staff why a line item they counted on had vanished overnight.
Some of you cried.
Some of you swore you were done with grants forever.
Most of you opened the portal again anyway.
You rewrote narratives in two weeks.
You recalculated budgets that no longer made sense.
You showed up to rehearsals, classrooms, galleries, and community rooms while quietly wondering how much longer this could be sustainable.
There’s no plaque for that kind of labor.
No gala spotlight.
Just a deep, unglamorous commitment to making the work happen anyway.
So today’s Orange Blossom goes to everyone who carried the weight of uncertainty and kept going — the EDs, grant writers, program staff, artists, and administrators who refused to let a shifting system define the value of their work.
This isn’t a consolation prize.
It’s recognition.
Because surviving the grant cycle was the work this year.
And you showed up.
What Are the Orange Blossom Awards?
A month-long series from The Arts Passport celebrating the people and organizations whose quiet, steady work strengthens Tampa Bay’s arts ecosystem. No applications. No campaigning. Just community-driven recognition, released daily in December.
Other Orange Blossom Stories:
December 1
Orange Blossom Award: Cheryl Davis and the Art of Showing Up
by Avery Anderson Every arts community has its stars — the people onstage, the names in the program, the ones audiences come to see. But Tampa Bay’s arts ecosystem runs on something deeper: the quiet, unglamorous, fiercely devoted labor of people who rarely get recognized. That’s why The Arts
Avery Anderson
December 2
Orange Blossom Award: The Quiet Coalition Behind a Theater Dream
by Avery Anderson Today’s Orange Blossom Award goes not to an individual, but to an unlikely coalition — four Tampa Bay theaters that came together this fall to help a much smaller organization make a very public case for its future. Dunedin Public Theater is barely two years old — volunteer-run,
Avery Anderson
December 3
Orange Blossom Award: The Architect of Reading Circles
by Avery Anderson Today’s Orange Blossom Award goes to someone whose work rarely draws attention, yet hundreds of St. Pete readers feel its ripple effects every single month — whether they realize it or not. Before most book clubs at Tombolo Books ever meet, before the emails go out or
Avery Anderson
December 4
Orange Blossom Award: The Keeper of Women’s Stories
by Avery Anderson Today’s Orange Blossom Award goes to someone whose work is so woven into Tampa’s arts landscape that many people don’t realize they’ve been shaped by it — not directly, but through the countless stories she’s helped bring into the world. Long before a
Avery Anderson
December 5
Orange Blossom Award: The Leader Who Let Herself Feel — and Then Got to Work
by Avery Anderson Every day in December, The Arts Passport is recognizing someone whose quiet, persistent work holds this region’s arts scene together — the kind of people who rarely get applause but absolutely deserve it. We call them the Orange Blossom Awards: small spotlights for the folks who keep
Avery Anderson
December 6
Orange Blossom Award: The Man Behind Tampa Bay’s Most-Seen Moments
by Avery Anderson In nearly every corner of Tampa Bay theatre, from splashy musicals to the smallest black box, there’s one person quietly shaping how audiences see the work — long after the curtain falls. He’s not onstage. He’s not giving notes. He’s usually somewhere in the
Avery Anderson
December 7
Orange Blossom Award: The Educator Who Rebuilt the Room While Standing In It
by Avery Anderson A quick reminder of what the Orange Blossom Awards are — in a city full of shiny galas and people congratulating themselves for “raising awareness,” these awards are for the other people.
The ones doing the unglamorous, quietly revolutionary work that actually shifts the ground under our arts
Avery Anderson
December 8
Orange Blossom Award: The Year Julia Rifino Climbed a Musical Mountain
By Avery Anderson Some artists bloom slowly. Others spend years quietly filling the room with talent until suddenly—one night, one show, one impossible marathon of a performance—the city realizes, oh… she’s a force of nature. This year, that moment belonged to Julia Rifino. If you’ve been
Avery Anderson
December 9
Orange Blossom Award: The First Phone Call Everyone Makes
by Avery Anderson Some leaders shine on stages. Others shine in boardrooms.
Terri Lipsey Scott shines in the moments when someone calls and says, “We need you.” Today’s Orange Blossom Award goes to the Executive Director of the Woodson African American Museum of Florida — a woman whose leadership in
Avery Anderson
December 10
Orange Blossom Award: The Quiet Producer
by Avery Anderson When people talk about “giving artists a voice,” they usually mean the visible parts: the microphone, the camera, the finished clip that pops up in your feed. What they rarely talk about is the person who made sure the microphone worked, the audio didn’t glitch, the
Avery Anderson
December 11
Orange Blossom Award: The Connector of Music
by Avery Anderson There’s a version of the arts ecosystem that runs on competition, scarcity, and quiet side-eye. And then there’s the version that actually works. This Orange Blossom Award goes to Matthew Morris—because he chose the second one. You might know Matthew as the leader of
Avery Anderson
December 12
Orange Blossom Award: The Hugs, the Work, the Legacy
by Avery Anderson Some people leave behind a body of work.
Others leave behind a way of working. Stephen Bell was the latter. This year, Tampa Bay lost one of its quiet architects—an artist who didn’t chase the spotlight but somehow illuminated every room he entered. Stephen passed
Avery Anderson
December 13
Orange Blossom Award: Taking the Wheel Mid-Turn
by Avery Anderson There’s a particular moment in the life of a theatre company that determines everything that comes next. The founder steps away. The safety net disappears. The question becomes painfully simple: Do we play it safe—or do we decide who we are, right now? This year
Avery Anderson
December 14
Orange Blossom Award: When Infrastructure Becomes Impact
by Avery Anderson Every few years, a city rediscovers a conversation it swore it was already having. In 2025, Tampa Bay is once again talking—loudly—about equity, access, and who actually benefits when a region “thrives.” What’s different this time is the growing recognition that visibility alone isn’
Avery Anderson
December 15
Orange Blossom Award: Katherine Yacko, The One Who Shows Up
by Avery Anderson There are artists who build careers.
And then there are artists who build ecosystems. Katherine Yacko has spent this year doing the second — often quietly, often in rooms where credit isn’t the point, and often while pregnant. She shows up first as a theatregoer. Not occasionally.
Avery Anderson
December 16
Orange Blossom Award: Darcy Schuller, Building What Lasts
by Avery Anderson Arts administrators are often praised for keeping the lights on. Darcy Schuller does something more consequential: she builds the conditions that allow ambition to last. Since joining the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Pete in 2021, Schuller—now Deputy Director and COO—has helped guide the institution
Avery Anderson
December 17
Orange Blossom Award: Freddie Hughes, Building Where Art Can Breathe
by Avery Anderson There’s a difference between hanging work on a wall and building a space where people feel safe enough to see themselves in it. Freddie Hughes understands that difference—and at The Studio@620, he’s quietly turning it into an ecosystem. Known artistically as FreddieFred, Hughes
Avery Anderson