Peyton Tuthill Foundation Wine & Cheese benefit raises money for scholarships

Peyton Tuthill Foundation will release a CD,  “Fly Away,” at the 9th Annual Wine & Cheese Event – A Taste of Spain on Thursday. 

The 9th fundraiser for the Peyton Tuthill Foundation will be at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 20, at Capital City Country Club. The foundation  will award Hearts of Hope scholarships to select college students who have been victimized by the homicide of parents or siblings.

There will be paella, tapas, sangria,  craft beer and music. Great silent and live auctions where you can bid on 18 holes of golf, a week’s vacation spot, jewelry, gift baskets, and much more. $25 on line www.peytontuthill.org or $30 at the door.

The music and lyrics for the CD were composed and written by inmates at Florida Correctional Institution. CD’s will be available for $10. This CD has been a three-year project that began with Pat Tuthill visiting the prison and speaking on the Impact of Violent Crime and returning a year later for an event where inmates played their original music. Tuthill was taken back by the spiritual lyrics and the tears came.  

Tuthill returned for another visit with her husband, Lee Kitchen, and recorded the music in the prison chapel. Over the course of seven months, the musicians had the music copyrighted with rights being transferred to the foundation so donations for the CD would go to the Hearts of Hope Scholarships to provide scholarships (vocational, community college, university) for children who lost a parent or sibling to homicide.

The project took an unexpected turn early on when the musicians families became involved and purchased the recorder for us to record the music.

Another family member volunteered her graphic design skills to design jacket cover for CD.  Another family started on marketing and will have a booth at a December Winterfest in South Florida.  

Pete Winter at Winterstone Sound created the final CD soundtrack for reproduction.
Benefits include:
• A funding stream for scholarships
• Inmates directly helping victim/survivors and being part of something positive and accountable
• Inmates families finding a way to help victims and be involved. 

The foundation has no paid staff and operates only with committed volunteers and the generosity of others.  

There are almost 18,000 homicides annually in the U.S. and unless it is a mass tragedy, the young survivors are left on their own in the aftermath of violence. We are committed to helping them reclaim their life through scholarships and connecting them with each other for support