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Bob Buzzelli Leaves A Humanitarian Legacy

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By MARK ZALOUDEK, Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: October 13, 2007

SARASOTA - Bob Buzzelli, an avid sailor, created many ripple effects of his own to help improve society.

Buzzelli, 45, who died Monday from a recent injury, donated his time and money to a variety of programs that helped children learn to sail, educated people about Florida's marine environment and motivated prisoners to reshape their lives. The longtime Sarasota resident was a great-grandson of E.W. Scripps, founder of the Scripps newspaper company and United Press International.

'He was a man who had many ambitions going in many different directions and a compassion that matched his ambitions,' said his sister, Liz Logan of Sarasota. 'He was involved in so many ways in giving back to the world. He was passionate about the environment and about helping people who were struggling.'

Buzzelli was visiting friends in Atlanta last week when he suffered a massive heart attack and injured his spinal cord, which caused irreversible brain damage.

Buzzelli helped underwrite a children's sailing program at the Sarasota Sailing Squadron for many years, and was a benefactor of Aquarian Quest, a Sarasota-based nonprofit organization that takes groups of children out on a large sailing vessel to teach them about marine life and navigation.

For several years, he also served on the national board of Prison Possibilities, a nonprofit organization that sought to break the cycle of inmate recidivism through motivational training programs.

Buzzelli's parents helped shape his civic-mindedness. His mother, the late Peg Scripps Buzzelli, established Anabasis, a residential treatment center in Sarasota in 1983 for people with alcohol and drug addictions. The facilities were later donated to the Sarasota Family YMCA to help at-risk youths and young adults, and have been renamed the Peg Scripps Buzzelli Campus.

His late father, Joseph Anthony Buzzelli, an accomplished artist, became a local environmental activist after moving to Casey Key in 1968. In 2003, Bob Buzzelli established an art center not only to permanently display his father's paintings, drawings and sculptures, but also to provide a venue for special events to raise money for civic causes, especially environmental ones in honor of his father.

Survivors include a 10-year-old daughter, Selena Rose Takerian of Sarasota.

A celebration of life will take place at 5 p.m. Oct. 21 at Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota.

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