NAPLES / CHILDREN / INSPIRATION
Maria
Jimenez-Lara
Keep the
children in
the picture.
By Rob Urban
On September 16, 2026, Maria Jimenez-Lara was talking with middle-school students about philanthropy. The Naples Children Foundation CEO and trustee Ashley Gerry were helping launch a collaboration with Community School of Naples, introducing students to local needs and the ways they could contribute. A USA TODAY Network photograph from the session records a useful part of her job: helping people understand the community beyond their own experience of it.
That matters in Naples, where the foundation behind the Winter Wine Festival works on needs that can be easy to miss from a comfortable distance. A visitor might know the restaurants, beaches and beautiful homes. A child elsewhere in the county may need a pair of glasses, reliable meals or a place to learn before kindergarten.
Jimenez-Lara works in the space between those realities.
She knew the
other side of
the grant.
She has known the work from the other side of a grant, too. Cayla Childs’ 2016 Gulfshore Life profile describes her years with the Redlands Christian Migrant Association, developing schools and community programs before joining the foundation. She had worked for an organization that received its support.
That is experience I value in someone responsible for giving. A grant has a life after the announcement. People have to hire, plan, answer parents’ questions and make the promised work happen. Jimenez-Lara brought experience with those responsibilities into a role that helps fund them.
In that same profile, she spoke about wanting care for children to endure beyond the foundation itself. I admire the generosity of that ambition. The most satisfying future for a child may be one in which the organization that helped them no longer needs to occupy much space in their life.
After someone
decides to give.
The foundation’s current leadership biography describes more than twenty years of nonprofit experience, including over a decade as its chief executive. Jimenez-Lara emphasizes relationships, trust and a network of care that can last beyond an individual gift.
It is easy to understand the appeal of an immediate result. Someone needs something; somebody else pays for it. Much of the work of a foundation involves a longer sequence: learning where the gaps are, identifying organizations equipped to respond and helping them work together over time.
That sequence requires a leader who can talk with donors while remaining attentive to the people delivering services. Those conversations have different vocabularies. They also need to lead toward the same result. A contribution carries an expectation, and a service provider understands the practical conditions under which that expectation can be met.
Jimenez-Lara’s role places her at that intersection. The arrangements the foundation supports show how a broad concern can become a series of specific actions.
One pair at school.
One pair at home.
Screen
Reach children through schools.
Respond
Exams and glasses when appropriate.
Connect
Specialized care when needed.
Consider its vision initiative. Bascom Palmer Eye Institute provides screenings in low-income schools, including through a mobile vision van. Where appropriate, children receive full examinations and two pairs of glasses. Children needing more specialized care can be referred onward. Florida Lions Eye Clinic and Lighthouse of Collier contribute different kinds of expertise.
Two pairs of glasses is a particularly sensible detail. One can remain at school and another at home. Anyone who has ever tried to keep track of a child’s jacket can appreciate designing a little redundancy into something more important.
The program also follows the question beyond screening. Identifying a problem is only useful if there is a way to respond. The connection among examination, glasses and specialist care is what makes the arrangement worth understanding.
A changing county
deserves another look.
The foundation has commissioned independent studies of children’s needs over two decades. Its 2005 study involved the University of Florida’s Lastinger Center for Learning. Later work revisited conditions after the Great Recession and the pandemic. A 2025 early-learning analysis considered availability, affordability and the stability of the childcare workforce.
The repeated research matters more to me than the existence of a single impressive report. Communities change. A service that once met a need may be too small, too far away or designed around circumstances that no longer apply. Returning to the evidence gives an organization a chance to revise its assumptions.
There is also value in making those studies available to others. A school, nonprofit or potential donor can use the findings without having to reconstruct the entire picture independently. Shared information makes it easier to discuss what should happen next.
The foundation’s early-learning partnerships show why that picture needs detail. They include support for childcare access, teacher quality and specialized help for children. Partners include Guadalupe Center, Pathways Early Education Center of Immokalee, RCMA and the Early Learning Coalition of Southwest Florida.
These organizations bring different strengths. A full-day program for a young child also affects a parent’s ability to work. Support for teachers affects what happens after the classroom door closes. Help with fees affects whether a family can use a program in the first place.
Treating those as connected concerns makes more sense than discussing early learning as if it were simply a question of opening another classroom. The people, hours, costs and quality all matter to the family choosing care.
Remember
Saturday.
Food is another example. Through its hunger initiative, the foundation supports organizations that reach families in different settings. Feeding Dreams provides weekend food packs for elementary-age children. Harry Chapin Food Bank distributes food through schools, early-learning centers, mobile pantries and partner agencies. Meals of Hope combines food packing with pantry access.
The variety answers a practical question: where can a family actually obtain what it needs? School may be the most familiar place during the week. A weekend or a school break changes the pattern.
This is related to Joan Faulkner’s work with HOPE Helps in Oviedo, where attention to the school calendar helps reveal needs that an average monthly figure can conceal. A child lives through every day individually. Assistance has to reach the days when it is needed.
A family needs
somewhere to start.
The county also needs a way for people to find its services. Collier CARES is a free bilingual resource developed with the Collier Community Foundation and the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation. It brings information about local help into a website and application.
That is an unglamorous but important piece of the work. A family should not have to become expert in the local nonprofit landscape before learning whom to call. Names of agencies can be unfamiliar, and people under pressure may have little time to investigate several possibilities.
Making information easier to find gives existing services a better chance of reaching the people they were created for. It also gives teachers, neighbors and relatives somewhere useful to direct someone who asks for help.
The classroom conversation with Jimenez-Lara returns us to the human side of all this organization. Students were being invited to notice needs around them and consider their own ability to respond. That is a worthwhile invitation at any age.
Her work offers a more developed version of the same idea. Pay attention to the children in your community. Learn what is making life harder for them. Bring the right people into the conversation, and keep following the work until generosity has become something as concrete as a meal, a classroom place or a pair of glasses waiting at school.
About Maria Jimenez-Lara’s work
What organization does Maria Jimenez-Lara lead?
Maria Jimenez-Lara is CEO of Naples Children Foundation, the organization behind the Naples Winter Wine Festival and a funder of services for children in Collier County.
What is Collier CARES?
Collier CARES is a free bilingual website and mobile application that connects people with resources and services in Collier County. Naples Children Foundation developed it with the Collier Community Foundation and the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation.
Why does the foundation support two pairs of glasses?
The foundation describes providing two pairs of glasses when medically appropriate, with one for school and one for home, as part of its vision initiative.
Sources: Naples Children Foundation’s leadership, research and program pages; Andrew West’s USA TODAY Network photograph and caption from September 16, 2026, available through Reuters Connect; and Cayla Childs’ 2016 Gulfshore Life profile. Current roles and program descriptions checked September 2026. Reflections on giving and practical care are Rob Urban’s.
More writing, and a little about the work I do with organizations: meet Rob.