UPDATE
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I remember.
I was conducting an advocacy training on the 21st story of a downtown Ft. Lauderdale high rise. Back in those days, cell phones were about the size of a sports sneaker and almost as heavy. I stepped closer to the bank of sun-lit windows for better reception.
“Roy, your wife, Jan, is standing next to me. She told me where I could find you.”
The recognizable voice on the other end of the line was Dr. Lawanda Ravoira, then the president and ceo of the statewide PACE Center for Girls.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“I’m stunned,” Dr. Ravoira began. “We’ve been zeroed out of the proposed state budget.”
Moments passed with a few expletives deleted from me, and more explanation about the PACE news and how it came to Dr. Ravoira from a high ranking elected official.
“I know just the woman who can help us,” I said. “She’s the complete communications professional, a business leader who knows her way around the political landscape, and is pro-girls and young women. She’ll get it.”
And so began a long and valued relationship with Deanne Roberts. Her firm, Roberts Communications, partnered with The Children’s Campaign to save PACE Center for Girls from the budget cuts of an ideologically driven but highly popular governor. In the years that followed, the relationship with savvy assistance from the Juvenile Justice Collaboration saved programs for runaways, homeless youth, day treatment and more. All total, 55,000 youth in Florida continue to receive services that would have been eliminated.
Deanne Dewey Roberts died in Tampa on Thursday, January 12, after a long and harsh battle with a rare form of cervical cancer that had metastasized to her lungs. Deanne was only 59.
With Deanne’s passing, Florida has lost more than one of its most ardent child advocates. It is now robbed of a consummate civic leader, a mentor to up and coming professionals, a visionary, and, more important, a tried and true humanitarian. The class and grace of Deanne during her illness is an inspiration. It has taught all who were touched by her more than a few lessons about humility and giving to others.
Reflecting back on the day when she got news about the budget cuts, Dr. Ravoira said, “The state was abandoning girls whose lives had been repeatedly scarred by abuse, abandonment and indifference. I wondered, how can we get the public to understand?”
The resulting public relations campaign – “Don’t Close the Doors On Us” – mobilized tens of thousands of Floridian’s into action. The television commercial was shot in a vacated and unheated warehouse in downtown St. Petersburg on the coldest day in years. It was freezing inside. But the energy to save the programs warmed everyone’s soul.
“The campaign was done in a way that honored and celebrated the power, hope and potential of the girl’s young lives,” Ravoira continued. “Deanne was a special woman who assembled an amazing team. Her gifts will be missed.”
When not coming to the aid of children, Deanne founded Emerge Tampa, oriented to young leaders, served on the board of Leadership Florida for 18-years, was chair of the Tampa Chamber of Commerce, and helped give rise to Creative Tampa Bay, an effort to recruit talent to the region.
Deanne’s pride and joy, her sons, Kirk and Kent, survive her as do her mother, Bette Dewey, her brother Wayne and his wife Vicki.
A memorial service will take place on Wednesday, January 18, at Unity of Tampa Church, 3302 W. Horatio Avenue in Tampa. Donations are being directed to the Dewey/Roberts Family Scholarship at Jesuit High School, 4701 N. Himes Avenue, Tampa, FL. 33614, or the Deanne Roberts Scholarship in Public Relations at the University of South Florida, 4202 East Fowler, Avenue, Tampa, FL. 33620.
While child advocacy will no doubt continue, we are deeply saddened by this enormous loss. Deanne Dewey Roberts is a sterling example of what should drive us to make the future brighter and better for all and the high standards we should set for ourselves and encourage in others.
This Watchdog Report was brought to you by:
Roy Miller
President
The Children’s Campaign
