Sarasota Art Museum is striking from the moment you approach, its Neo-Gothic architecture carrying a quiet romanticism. But the moment you step inside, the space shifts. It opens into something bright and contemporary, filled with natural light and small bursts of color and movement. It feels alive, part gallery, part gathering place, where people come not just to look at art, but to feel connected to something larger than themselves and to one another.

Museums like this exist for a reason. Their purpose goes beyond exhibitions, they're built to serve the community, to be accessible and reflective of the people who walk through their doors. The Sarasota Art Museum embodies this spirit.

We've brought WondrVoices to all kinds of spaces across Florida, coffee shops, senior centers, farmers markets, art walks. But when we reached out to museums in the region, Sarasota Art Museum stood out immediately. Ella responded with genuine enthusiasm, inviting us to join their upcoming Second Sunday program. It felt like an instant alignment: a museum dedicated to community engagement and a project built around giving people a way to express care through creativity. Here was a space that already understood what we were trying to do, a place where art and human connection naturally meet.

When we arrived, the classroom instructors welcomed the project immediately. As community members filtered in for Second Sunday, they invited each person to create cards of support for cancer patients alongside their planned memory jar activity. None of them knew about WondrVoices beforehand, but it embodied what they already do: invite connection and support through art.

The preplanned  memory jar activity asked participants to illustrate meaningful memories inside a jar outline. Each session ran about thirty minutes. But some families lingered. One in particular stayed long after others had moved on. Each time they created another, they paused at cards others had created, then settled in to make their own. Slowly, deliberately, they created card after card. This is what Second Sunday creates: space for this kind of presence. WondrVoices became a way to extend that spirit of community and connection beyond the museum's walls, to people battling cancer.

The Sarasota cards now sit together in the gallery, alongside messages from across the country. Looking through them, patterns emerge, not just in style, but in the symbols people gravitate toward. That afternoon, fish appeared again and again.

A week earlier, I'd joined a support call with Ashes to Courage,  a patient support group where I shared about wondrvoices. During the call, one member scrolled through the gallery and found a "Just Keep Swimming" card. They shared it in the chat. Another member saw it. That was their motto, Dory's motto from Finding Nemo. It had also been the motto of a group member who'd passed away that summer, someone who'd brought joy even in the darkest times. The card likely carried deeper meaning than whoever drew it could have known.

Another card from Sarasota arrived covered entirely in references to the number 67, repeated, stylized, woven into patterns. When I uploaded it, I had no idea what it meant. Later I learned: 67 is a Gen Alpha phenomenon, an inside joke and rallying cry that's become shorthand for resilience. To me, it was just a number with no weight. To someone scrolling through cards who's part of that generation, it might be exactly the message that brings a little joy when going through a hard time.

The gallery collects every voice, every reference, every symbol, even the ones we don't personally understand. The fish cards might speak to someone who finds meaning in water, in movement, in "just keep swimming." The 67 card might reach a teenager in a way nothing else could. We can't predict which message will land, or when, or why.

This is what the living gallery does. Each card outlives its physical copy. Each one becomes searchable, findable. How you find community differs from how I find it. The gallery holds all voices so anyone can find the one that speaks to them.

Join us

If you're in Sarasota, I highly recommend attending the next Second Sunday at Sarasota Art Museum. It's a beautiful way to spend a Sunday afternoon as a family, creating art, connecting with your community, and contributing something meaningful. You can create cards for cancer patients alongside all the other creative activities they have planned.

For those beyond Sarasota: if you're part of a museum, community center, library, or art space, consider hosting a WondrVoices event. Art has a unique way of inviting people to pause, reflect, and create something kind together. Reach out if you'd like to bring this to your community.

And wherever you are, browse the Sarasota cards, explore the full gallery, or create a card of your own and be submitted via the WondrVoices app on iOS and Android.   

How you find community differs from how I find it, but the gallery holds space for all of us for each of us to voice sypport in our own way.