BEAM celebrated 40 years of service to Beaches families and surprised Mary Ellen Waugh with the 2026 Beam’s Shining Light award and a new truck for her community garden work at the nonprofit's 2026 BEAM of Light Beach Ball on Aug. 29, 2026 at Sawgrass Country Club in Ponte Vedra Beach.
The event drew hundreds of supporters, staff and volunteers for the organization's largest annual fundraiser, which supports BEAM's food, financial assistance and senior programs across the Beaches.
An organization built on volunteers
Jeff Winkler, BEAM's executive director, told the crowd the organization now has more than 400 volunteers working in some capacity every week, a workforce he called the "heartbeat" of the nonprofit. Winkler, who has led BEAM for nearly three years, said the organization's reach extends from feeding families and supporting seniors to helping households stay housed and assisting single mothers toward self-sufficiency.
Winkler credited BEAM's thrift store operation, voted best at the Beaches three years running, as one of the nonprofit's most significant sources of revenue funding its programs.
He said BEAM's board and staff have built the organization's culture around four core values, compassion, community, dignity and integrity, along with three newer guiding principles: humble, driven and self-aware.
"What makes us unique is how we do what we do," Winkler said, adding that the distinction shows up in how staff and volunteers treat clients "just as if they were their own mothers or grandmothers."
Waugh honored for Grace Garden, Giving Garden work
The evening's centerpiece was a tribute to Mary Ellen Waugh, recognized for building Grace Garden and BEAM's newer Giving Garden at Mayport Middle School into what Winkler called "two of BEAM's true gems."
Susan King, now CEO of Feeding Northeast Florida and a former BEAM executive director, introduced Waugh. King launched both Grace Garden and BEAM's first thrift store about 13 years ago during her tenure leading the organization.
In a surprise announcement, Waugh's daughters, Kate and Jen, joined her onstage to present a gift arranged by Jason and Victoria Miller, unable to attend the event, who made a contribution covering the cost of a new truck for the garden program. Winkler said Waugh has needed a vehicle for hauling dirt and tools for years, a need that has grown since BEAM opened the Giving Garden at Mayport Middle School.
Grace Garden's beginnings
In an interview at the event, Waugh traced her gardening roots to her daughter Kate's junior year abroad in South Africa, where Kate built a garden behind a community center in a Cape Town township. When Kate returned home, Waugh said, she tore out a corner of the family's own lot to keep gardening, then got pulled further in through a friendly rivalry with a landscaping neighbor.
Waugh said her path to BEAM ran through her grandchildren's elementary school, where she started a garden box outside her grandson Christian's second-grade classroom, only to watch a rabbit eat the seedlings within days. After trapping and rehoming the rabbit, Waugh said, she and the school community built a much larger children's garden with 23 beds, one for every class, working through a summer without waiting for permission. The project included a 2012 "veggie voting" event timed to a presidential election, in which students cast ballots in the school cafeteria for which vegetables to plant, complete with campaign-style signage and pie-plate ballot boxes.
Waugh said King recruited her to Grace Garden not long after, and the two later ran together, which led them to help start a girls' running club. Today, she said, Grace Garden operates on organic, companion-planting methods, though it is not certified organic due to cost, and produces enough lettuce and other greens through vertical growing towers that "everybody can have lettuce whenever they want." She said BEAM is currently rebuilding the garden's greenhouse and starting seeds for a planned new garden site at Seabreeze.
Asked what the recognition meant to her, Waugh said it confirmed the garden's role as "a real anchor in the community." She said the garden was built for five purposes beyond supplying fresh produce to BEAM's food pantry, which had previously offered only non-perishable items: as a place of respite for clients in crisis, as a way to beautify what she and King described as one of the ugliest lots in Jacksonville, as a habitat for local wildlife including butterflies and a nesting colony of purple martins, and as a gathering point for the surrounding community. Waugh said she plans to add a gazebo to the garden and hopes to launch urban gardening classes and children's story hours there.
Senior program client's story anchors the evening
The event also featured a video telling the story of Anita, a client in BEAM's Senior Program, and Johnna, the volunteer BEAM credited with making what Winkler described as an undeniably positive impact on Anita's life. Winkler said BEAM is expanding its Senior Program, which helps older residents age in place, as the Beaches' senior population grows. He named Melissa Kicklighter, Tisha Beatty and Kyle Lowery as the staff members who run the program.
BEAM's community focus
Winkler stressed the organization's defining strength: staying hyper-local.
Winkler said BEAM's ability to focus resources on one specific community, rather than operating regionally or statewide, lets it "drive impact, where it's very hard to do that on a regional or statewide or national level." He credited the Beaches community itself for showing up around that mission. "This community cares, this community wants to be part of the solution, and BEAM provides that for them, and they're stepping up," he said.
Asked about BEAM's volunteer base, Winkler said his 30 years working in Jacksonville's nonprofit sector gave him a comparison point. "I have never seen an army of volunteers as caring, compassionate, and committed as our volunteers are," he said, adding that BEAM's roughly 400 weekly volunteers extend what paid staff alone could accomplish. He described the Beaches as "a little bubble out here at the beach that is impenetrable to the divisiveness" more common elsewhere, crediting that atmosphere for how residents show up for neighbors in need.
Winkler also pointed to Mary Ellen Waugh's Grace Garden as an example of the community's character, echoing Susan King's description of her as one of the most consequential leaders BEAM has had. "It's more than just the produce," Winkler said. "It's the heart of the org."
Program leadership and recognitions
Jacksonville Beach Mayor Christine Hoffman served as emcee and US Representative Aaron Bean led the evening's live auction. Winkler recognized this year's Beach Ball Committee, Cat Yant, Katherine Callaway, Kelly Thompson, Walker Berry, Jessica Roberts, Casey Bagby and Kaylie Dieterle, alongside BEAM staff members Marianne Woodward and Charles Watson, for organizing the event.
Winkler also recognized the Rev. Don Lynn, one of BEAM's founding members 41 years ago, and his wife, Barbara, both still active volunteers. Clare Berry of Berry & Co. Realty returned as the event's presenting sponsor alongside her husband, Vance.
Residents interested in volunteering with or seeking services from BEAM can visit the BEAM's website.
Disclosure: Beach Gazette was provided a complimentary ticket to cover the event. BEAM did not have any editorial decisions over the final article.
