WSLR

About WSLR

The Best of Us: Being Human in Sarasota features surprising stories and in-depth conversations of strength and resilience in Sarasota and beyond. In each episode, host Bethany Ritz talks with someone leaning into this emerging culture in our region—sometimes on a personal level, other times community-wide—followed by a topical guest offering a wider view of what’s possible. These approaches and systems, some embedded and some emerging, are revolutionizing how we do business and live our best lives.Something is happening in Sarasota. It’s radical, it’s surprising, and best of all, it’s here and it’s growing.Reach out if you would like to host a similar program for your area.Show credits: Host, Bethany Ritz; Music Consultant, Christopher Gillard of Sound Haus Audio.

Publisher

WSLR

Category

health & fitness

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

27 Mar 2025

Latest episode

20 Aug 2025

Latest episodes

9 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   20 Aug 2025

   Episode 9: The Best of Us: August 17 2025 with Paul and Kristina Abernathy (On Nourishment: Part 2)

   This episode focuses on Trauma-Informed Community Development, a framework developed by the Neighborhood Resilience Project. Based in Pittsburgh, the Orthodox ministry is dedicated to addressing community trauma. Their work is rooted in the Gospel and teaching of the Orthodox Church and inspired by the American Civil Rights Movement. Father Paul Abernathy is the Pastor of St. Moses the Black Orthodox Church in Pittsburgh, a Priest with the Antiochian Archdiocese, the author of The Prayer of a Broken Heart: An Orthodox Christian Reflection on African American Spirituality, and the founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Neighborhood Resilience Project. He is married to Presbytera Kristina Abernathy, who is the Chief Growth Officer for the project.While working in a predominantly Black underserved community in Pittsburgh, Father Abernathy was regularly interacting with men, women, and children who had repeatedly experienced multiple forms of trauma, such as hunger, abuse, homelessness, racism, violence, and a lack of opportunity or health care. He began to ask the question: How do you heal an entire community that has been inundated with trauma for generations?Their vision is to inspire a movement in which suffering people are raised up from the ashes of trauma in unconditional love to become empowered healers, community builders, and positive change makers. They recently hosted a community training workshop here in Sarasota.Find out more about Father Paul and Presbytera Kristina’s work at neighborhoodresilience.org.

2. 

   20 Aug 2025

   Episode 8: The Best of Us: August 3 2025 with Greg Cruz (On Nourishment: Part 1)

   This episode features a conversation with Greg Cruz, the founder and executive director of Streets of Paradise. An organization that fights homelessness with dignity and grace. His deep connection to the work is rooted in lived experience and a lifelong commitment to ensuring no one is left behind. He talks about his newest project, Love Act Repeat.Greg brings a hands-on, human-centered approach to everything Streets of Paradise does—from furnishing homes to responding in times of crisis. Under his leadership, Streets of Paradise has grown from a grassroots effort into a trusted, action-based organization serving hundreds of individuals and families every year.In 2017, they served full holiday dinners in public parks, meals shared by neighbors, housed and unhoused alike. These gatherings reminded them that real nourishment comes from the community food creates. What they didn't expect was how much the volunteers needed it too.Today, working with hundreds of partners, they've served tens of thousands of meals and have shown up after every storm. They remain flexible, grassroots, community-led, and powered by the same spirit: love, action, and showing up again tomorrow, blue skies or gray.Find out more about Greg’s work and the Love Act Repeat Resiliency Hub at streetsofparadise.org.

3. 

   3 Jul 2025

   Episode 7: The Best of Us: June 15 2025 Father's Day Special

   Host Bethany Ritz interviews Peg Shanley about her father, and also shares reflections from community members, in a special Father's Day episode.

4. 

   7 Jun 2025

   Episode 6: The Best of Us: June 1 2025 with Johana Kuemerle-Pinillos

   Trauma specialist Johana Kuemerle-Pinillos explores the underlying impact of trauma on individuals and families, drawing from her extensive experience in mental health as this is an interview episode.

5. 

   22 May 2025

   Episode 5: The Best of Us: May 18 2025 with Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder

   Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder explores themes from her book, *Mother, Creature, Kin*, focusing on lessons learned from nature's mothers during times of unraveling, in this interview.

6. 

   10 May 2025

   Episode 4: The Best of Us: May 4 2025 with Jon Thaxton

   Jon Thaxton, Sarasota County Planning Commissioner, shares his insights on land preservation and stewardship as a lifelong practice that benefits mind, body, and spirit in this interview.

7. 

   17 Apr 2025

   Episode 3: The Best of Us: April 6 2025 with Tonya Disapio and James Encinas

   The third episode of The Best of Us: Being Human in Sarasota aired April 6 2025. This episode explores both sides of domestic violence—victim and perpetrator—and the power of listening. While Tonya Disapio will discuss her experience working as a victim advocate in Sarasota, Reverend James Encinas will share about his experience with profound listening as a path to reaching the other side of abuse.The episode's local guest, Tonya Disapio, is a Victim Advocate. Previously, she was the Family Law Case Manager for the 20th Judicial Circuit in Fort Myers. She has a bachelor’s in psychology from UCF and a Master of Jurisprudence from FSU and has worked with Families, Veterans, Children, and Victims of crime.The episode's topic guest, Reverend James Encinas, works at First United Methodist Church in Boulder as the “animare" (The Latin verb animare means "to give life to"). His job is to animate the gifts of those experiencing homelessness by connecting them with social capital, and inviting people to parties where they can fall in love with one another, and encouraging them in who they are, and going with them along the way even as roadblocks arise in the living out of those gifts. James is also a parent educator, child abuse/domestic violence service provider, activist, author, actor, and public speaker. He is an alumni of The Living School for Action and Contemplation founded by Richard Rohr, a two-year program for a select group of students that have come together to deepen engagement with their truest selves and with the world. He is a Fellow of the first class of the Aspen Teacher Leaders Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Propelled by his Aspen Fellowship experience, James completed a cross-country bicycle ride and, as a result, has written a book titled Wheeling to Healing: Broken Heart on a Bicycle. Before this, James was an educator and role model for the heavily Latino population at Westminster Avenue Elementary School. James helped found the Westminster Avenue Elementary School Endowment, a not-for-profit focused on strengthening ties with parents and the community at large. Faced with continuing declining enrollment in the school and the possibility of eventual closure, he and his colleagues focused on building ties with a diverse group of parents and community members. As a result, Westminster’s enrollment stabilized, and standardized test scores soared. James was very active in addressing teacher quality issues. Explore his latest project at doorwayspuertas.com.

8. 

   27 Mar 2025

   Episode 2: The Best of Us: March 2 2025 with Wendy Ingram and Gregg F. Martin

   The second episode of The Best of Us: Being Human in Sarasota will aired March 2 2025. The hour-long show explores the mental health risks that can arise in the pursuit of excellence. While Ingram will discuss how the well-being of academics, professionals, and visionaries permeate every aspect of our world, two-star Major General Martin will share how his bipolar disorder was his greatest strength until it became the most dangerous thing in his life.Sunday’s local guest is Dr. Wendy Ingram, PhD, CEO and co-founder of Dragonfly Mental Health, a nonprofit with a mission to cultivate excellent mental health among academics worldwide. She is also a research scientist at Geisinger Health, where she works on biomedical informatics projects aimed at improving healthcare outcomes following surgery and at better understanding patients’ responses to electroconvulsive therapy. She serves as chair of the American Medical Informatics Association’s Mental Health Informatics Working Group and is a consultant to biomedical technology companies that focus on advancing mental health care.The topic guest of the episode is Dr. Major General Gregg F. Martin, US Army (Retired), a 36-year combat veteran who is a bipolar survivor, thriver, and warrior. An Airborne-Ranger-Engineer qualified soldier and Strategist, he commanded a combat engineer company, battalion, and brigade, and was commanding general of Fort Leonard Wood, commandant of the Army War College, and president of the National Defense University. A graduate of West Point, he holds a PhD and two master’s degrees from MIT, and master’s degrees from both the Army and Naval war colleges. He has lived on the bipolar spectrum his whole life, which mostly helped him, until it went too high, and then it nearly destroyed him. His life’s mission and purpose is sharing his bipolar story to help stop stigma, promote recovery, and save lives. His wife Maggie is an Army brat, Army wife, and Army mom to three sons, two of whom are Army Special Forces veterans, and one an artist. Martin is the author of “BIPOLAR GENERAL: My Forever War with Mental Illness.” For more, see his website at bipolargeneral.com.

9. 

   27 Mar 2025

   Episode 1: The Best of Us: February 2 2025 with Emily Brown and George Prochik

   The first episode of The Best of Us: Being Human in Sarasota aired February 2 2025. The hour-long show explores how the practice of repairing, making, or even viewing artworks is elemental to our human capacity for resilience, proving that the arts run deeper than superficial luxury. While Emily Brown will offer a personal perspective, George Prochnik will offer a history lesson from Vienna.The local guest is Emily Brown Conservator of Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. Before The Ringling, Brown completed a Mellon Fellowship at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a contract position at The Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and graduate internships at Shelburne Museum, The Fitzwilliam Museum, and The Walters Art Museum. She is a graduate of the Winterthur-University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation and is a recurring guest lecturer for the Program, teaching First-Year students about the history of glass manufacture. She gave a talk recently at The Ringling’s Wonder Symposium and shared how she was able to regain an experience of wonder in her work after the loss of her husband.The topic guest of the episode is George Prochik, a Guggenheim Fellow and the author of five books of nonfiction including Stranger in a Strange Land, which was a New York Times editors’ choice and was short-listed for the 2018 Wingate Literary Prize in the UK. His previous book, The Impossible Exile, was shortlisted for the 2016 Wingate Literary Prize and won the National Jewish Book Award for Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir. Prochnik is also the author of In Pursuit of Silence, Putnam Camp, and Heinrich Heine: Writing the Revolution. He has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Bookforum, and Los Angeles Review of Books, and is editor at large for Cabinet magazine.

Who has been a guest on WSLR

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Peg Shanley
• Johana Kuemerle-Pinillos
• Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder
• Jon Thaxton

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 3 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

6

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

0

Contact WSLR

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.