Here's a look at what Brevard's Citizen of the Year finalists do for our community
Seniors. Surfing. Setting organizations up for successful collaboration. Though their areas of work vary widely, the three finalists for FLORIDA TODAY's Citizen of the Year Volunteer Recognition Awards share a passion for helping people in Brevard, whether that's through providing aging residents with resources, raising funds for a new aquarium or simply by bringing a smile to their face through a holiday tradition.
This year's finalists for Citizen of the Year are:
Joe Steckler, founder of Brevard Alzheimer's Foundation and Helping Seniors of Brevard.
George Trosset, founder of Surfing Santas.
Neal Johnson, volunteer with numerous organizations and creator of the Johnson Family Legacy Challenge for Brevard Zoo’s Aquarium Project.
Joe Steckler: a passion for Brevard's seniors
At nearly 90 years old, Joe Steckler is still working hard to help seniors in Brevard.
Steckler, founder and president of Helping Seniors of Brevard — a nonprofit that connects seniors with information and services around the county — started working with the elderly population about 33 years ago. He was a naval officer, and his last assignment was as the commanding officer of a naval retirement home. After a couple of years there, he came to Brevard, where he quickly began working with seniors, helping those with Alzheimer's, dementia and everyday needs that come with getting older. He plans to continue his work as long as he can.
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“As long as God lets me wake up every morning, I’m just going to keep on working until I don’t wake up,” the Satellite Beach resident said.
When Steckler first began working in Brevard in 1993 with the East Central Florida Alzheimer’s Association, there were few adult daycares and little help for seniors, he said. That’s what led him to found the Brevard Alzheimer’s Foundation, a nonprofit that works with Alzheimer patients and their families, and to raise money to build daycares in Melbourne, Titusville and Micco.
He stayed with the foundation until 2011, working to help seniors in any capacity he could, he said.
“Any time we got a call, we responded,” he said, adding that people’s needs are often requests for help with basic tasks, like getting ready in the morning or just a need for companionship.
Though he left in 2011, he felt there was still a need for services for seniors. That same year, Steckler went on to found Helping Seniors of Brevard with the goal to “inform, educate and connect seniors with resources they (need) to age with dignity.”
Steckler said he’s compelled to do this work because he’s seen firsthand how difficult simple tasks can become without assistance among older people, giving an example of a woman he knew who would cut her medication dosages in half because the cost of transportation for simple grocery runs was so expensive.
“We have retired people in this county that would love to be connected to help people, drive them to take them to the palace, and somebody had the gumption to get out and set up a program to help these people,” he said. “And that’s what I did.”
His work has been wide-ranging, from answering phone calls, connecting seniors with community members and speaking on radio shows and TV to writing newspaper columns and newsletters about resources for seniors. It’s his goal to make things as simple as possible for those in need of a little help.
“Our job is to do the very, very best we can to determine, research, grab on to anything we hear about how a senior can be helped, put it in our files and in our notebooks so that we know when somebody calls us, that there’s a possible resource there that we (can) help refer them to,” he said.
George Trosset: bringing smiles with the 'red suit effect'
It started 14 years ago as a fun idea with his son and daughter-in-law: surfing as Santa, with the two of them dressed as elves. Now, it’s grown into an event known around the world.
George Trosset, a 70-year-old Rockledge resident, started Cocoa Beach’s Surfing Santa event in 2009, inspired by a car commercial that depicted surfers dressed in holiday gear. Each year, the event gained more attention both locally and worldwide online, with about 8,000 to 10,000 spectators attending each year and anywhere from 300 to 500 surfers participating.
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Online, Trosset tracks the engagement articles and other content about the event get, and by his estimate, billions of people have heard of Surfing Santas over the years.
“Surfing Santas makes people smile,” Trosset said. “We’ve created 10 billion smiles around the world.”
That’s why he does what he does — to make people smile. He calls it the “red suit effect,” saying that “if you do things as Santa, good things will happen.”
“It’s a powerful motivator for me,” he said.
Each year, from about August to December, Trosset works to organize the event. The biggest aspect of preparation is printing and distributing T-shirts around Brevard County. Funds from T-shirt and merchandise sales, along with donations, go toward the Florida Surf Museum and Grind for Life, a Cocoa Beach nonprofit that helps cancer patients travel to and from medical treatments. Funding has also been donated in the past toward surf and swim teams at Florida Tech, Cocoa Beach Jr./Sr. High School, Satellite Beach High School and Melbourne High School.
The joy Trosset sees on attendees’ faces — or even strangers he’s run into in other countries, who say they’ve heard of the event — makes the months of work worth it all.
Trosset recalled dozens of special moments, from twins celebrating their birthday at the Christmas Eve event every year, to visiting children in Florida hospitals to take photos with Surfing Santas, to sending a plush Surfing Santa up on Pineapple owner Steve Young’s rocket. One of his favorite moments was a simple one: seeing a man take a photo with a Surfing Santa and watching his face light up.
“He (told me), ‘I felt like I was 10 years old again,’” Trosset said. “He got his picture with Santa as an adult, and it took him back to his childhood. And it dawned on me what was going on here.”
Neal Johnson: bridging the gap in nonprofit and business
Neal Johnson’s volunteer work has touched a variety of areas on the Space Coast, from helping military veterans to teaching life skills to teens to contributing to Brevard Zoo’s aquarium project.
The 63-year-old Melbourne resident has been working on various committees and boards since 2005, including the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast, the Melbourne Regional Chamber of Commerce, LEAD Brevard, AMIKids Space Coast, Space Coast Home Builders and Contractors Association, Business Voice Political Committee, Tied Together Space Coast, Brevard Civilian Military Council and the Brevard Zoo Aquarium Project Campaign Cabinet. He’s also volunteered with Space Coast Honor Flight, accompanying veterans on three trips to Washington, D.C.
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“I’ve been able to leverage my community involvement and the visibility that’s given me to help some other organizations get visibility, and I think all of that makes it a better place to live, work and play,” Johnson said.
Bridging the gap between various nonprofits, government and other organizations has been a big part of his work, he said.
An example of that is the work he did in 2005 as chair of the EDC. The Naval Ordnance Test Unit at Port Canaveral was set to be closed by the military as part of the Base Realignment and Closure project. Johnson worked with a committee to encourage them to reconsider that decision and ultimately, NOTU was spared.
“(It) has created thousands of jobs since then,” Johnson said. “When you have more employment here, you have more people participating in many ways with our nonprofit organizations through philanthropy, through participation.”
In August, Johnson created the Johnson Family Legacy Challenge for Brevard Zoo’s Aquarium Project, a move that was inspired by Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoing $2 million in funding for the zoo in June. The fund has raised about $270,000 since August.
“It really was just a matter of talking to people as I’m out and coming from the standpoint of, ‘My family is doing this, would you care to join me?’” he said.
This year's winner of the Citizen of the Year award will be announced at an invitation-only ceremony. Last year’s finalists were Bob Barnes, Michael Cadore and Marcus Ingeldsen. Barnes, founder of the Children's Hunger Project and Aspiration Academy, won the Citizen of the Year award.
Finch Walker is the education reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Walker at 321-290-4744 or fwalker@floridatoday.com. X: @_finchwalker.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Brevard's Citizen of the Year finalists share passion for community
