Community Rallies Around Marineland Dolphin Adventure with Cash and Gift Cards for Employees

Marineland Dolphin Adventure’s three dozen employees got a special visit from Flagler County Tourism Director Amy Lukasik and Flagler Broadcasting’s Kirk Keller—the vice president of sales—bringing $4,563 in gift cards (plus $100 in cash from Flagler Beach Commissioner Rick Belhumeur, who was part of the visiting group).

Marineland Dolphin Adventure changed hands on Dec. 1, as a philanthropic couple bought it out of bankruptcy and turned it over to Felicia Cook, the longtime general manager, and Jack Kasewitz, a dolphin expert, who now form its leadership team. The business will operate as a nonprofit.

While attending last Monday’s County Commission meeting, Lukasik pondered how she’d mark the holiday season with her tourism staff. She thought visiting the attraction with a few gifts might be timely. “Sometimes they feel they’re forgotten,” she said of the Marineland staff, who are so far north in the county and do not benefit from the close-knit ties of the Flagler Beach business community.

Lukasik also recalled the difficulties the staff went through over the past 18 months of uncertainty. Some went without paychecks on occasion, faced cut health benefits, or were laid off.

Those hardships appear to be over now. All employees are getting paid; they just received their last paycheck from the firm handling the bankruptcy and their first paycheck from the new company, Apex Associates. “Waves of the future,” Cook put it in a text today. (At this point, it’s the town of Marineland that needs help. See: “Grappling with Shrinking Tax Base and Dissolution, Marineland Will Look to Soak Marina for More Dollars.”)

Still, Lukasik wanted to extend a gesture. County government, of course, can’t do that. She contacted Keller, who has a way with fundraising. It was “mostly me making phone calls saying we need help, we need help,” Keller said.

In a matter of days, he had collected significant pledges, including $1,000 from Grace Community Food Pantry and $1,200 from the Elks Lodge. Other donors included Beachfront Grille and Johnny D’s in Flagler Beach, Kathy Austrino’s Tag Ventures, Palm Coast Mayor Mike Norris and Council Member Ty Miller, Flagler Broadcasting’s Trisha Woods, the Friends of A1A, and Sheila Pillath of the United Way of Volusia-Flagler.

“We didn’t want to make a public plea because we didn’t want to embarrass the employees, we just wanted to surprise them today,” Keller said. “They’ve been kind of volunteering their time.” (Keller had been under the impression that the Marineland employees were “volunteers” and may still not be getting paid, but Cook texted him the correction today.)

But now that Marineland Dolphin Adventure is a nonprofit, it is welcoming contributions—it will soon have a contribution button on its website—and volunteer help restoring the place, which Lukasik said “needs a lot of tender loving care.” Even her staff is willing to lend a hand. “We would be more than willing to go in and paint,” Lukasik said.