South Tampa, FL November 2026 by City Lifestyle

Thankful LI F E + C U LTU R E

TH E TABLE TH E Y BU I LT TO GETH ER - BRI D GET TE AN D J OSE BELLO

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LIFESTYLE LETTER

A Season of Gratitude In this season of gratitude, we often find ourselves reflecting on the many blessings in our lives. Thanksgiving encourages us to slow down, embrace the present, and appreciate the people and moments that bring us joy. This month, I’ve been especially grateful for the small, everyday moments that make life beautiful: the laughter of loved ones, quiet mornings with a cup of coffee, and the chance to be part of such a vibrant community here in South Tampa. Recently, I had one of those very full days—three events in one day, starting early and ending much later than my usual bedtime. But Matt was home and able to be my date for one of them, and somewhere in the middle of all the running around, I found myself thinking about how grateful I am for this season. Building something I love, connecting with this community and sharing moments of it with the people I love most is something I don’t want to take for granted. Our November issue is dedicated to stories of gathering, giving back, and celebrating the people and organizations that make South Tampa such a special place. We’re endlessly thankful for our advertising partners, whose support allows us to bring inspiring stories to your doorstep each month, and for the readers who make it all worthwhile. As we prepare to gather with loved ones, let’s take a moment to reflect on what truly brings meaning to our lives. This holiday season, may we find contentment not in possessions or accolades but in the connections, we nurture and the good we do for others. Wishing you and your family a season of gratitude and grace,

November 2026 PUBLISHER

Bethany Norman | Bethany.Norman@citylifestyle.com M AN AG I N G E D I TO R

JoAnn Chang | joann.chang@citylifestyle.com P U B L I CAT I O N D I R E C TO R

Matt Norman | matt.norman@citylifestyle.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Bethany Norman, JoAnn Chang, Mandy Schulis, Laura Bleacher C O N T R I B U T I N G P H OTO G R AP H E R S

Brandwell Studios, Jordan Torelli Photography, Ana Laura Acosta Photography, Laura Bleacher, Sarah Fairbairn, Mitchell Smithey, Grey Bull Rescue, Madi’s Movement

Corporate Team CEO Steven Schowengerdt President Matthew Perry CRO Jamie Pentz CoS Janeane Thompson AD DESIGNER Josh Govero LAYOUT DESIGNER Liz Nixon QUALITY CONTROL SPECIALIST Brandy Thomas

BETHANY NORMAN, PUBLISHER @ S O U T H TA M PA C I T Y L I F E S T Y L E

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inside the issue NOVE M B E R 2 0 2 6 | TH ANK F U L

16 Featured

16 32

Print Prestige Meets Digital Power.

WHY CHOOSE BETWEEN PRESTIGE AND PLACEMENT?

Departments

Stronger Than Before Mandy Schulis had to rethink the life she built

The Table They Built Together

Two careers, one marriage and a lifetime of making room

Lifestyle Letter

City Scene

Must See LIFE + CULTURE

Hometown Hero LIFE + CULTURE

Inspired By LIFE + CULTURE

Giving Back LIFE + CULTURE

Local Limelight EDUCATION

Decor Trends HOME + DESIGN

The Artful Table

The team behind Honeybee Home shares the design secrets behind beautiful, memorable tablescapes

On the Cover Meet Bridgette and Jose Bello in this month's cover feature The Table They Built Together. Photography: Ana Laura Acosta Photography

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city scene WHERE NEIGHBORS CAN SEE AND BE SEEN

1-5: Madi’s Movement celebrated the 3rd Annual Pathways to Employment Career Readiness Expo with hosts Leon and Kay. Nearly 200 young adults with lived experience in foster care attended the event. 6-7: Madi’s Movement hosted an honorary tea event for the 35 founding members of their Legacy Circle. Photography by Madi’s Movement

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ARTICLE BY BETHANY NORMAN PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRANDWELL STUDIOS & JORDAN TORELLI PHOTOGRAPHY

Mandy Schulis had to rethink the life she built, discovering that starting over revealed strengths she never knew she had and new definitions of success

Stronger Than Before Sometimes the life you worked hard to build must change before you can see what you were meant to build next. For nearly two decades, neuromuscular therapist and owner of Necessary Elements of South Tampa, Mandy Schulis, built a career helping people navigate pain, combining an understanding of the body with intuition she said had been present since childhood. As a young girl, she instinctively noticed when people were hurting. At college, friends sought her out for help with migraines and shoulder pain. An early interest in medicine led her to study exercise physiology before discovering that her strengths, and perhaps her calling, were elsewhere.

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sign, handing over the keys and sitting in the shower afterward crying. “I just felt so defeated,” she recalled. Yet that ending created space for something she rarely allowed herself: stillness. Instead of immediately trying to recreate her old life, Mandy began paying closer attention to her own healing. She became certified in Reiki and nervous-system work while studying energetics and reconsidering some of what she believed about pain throughout her career. She began recognizing connections between the physical body, trauma and the stories people carry. “I would not be a tenth of the therapist I am now if I hadn’t gone through that,” she said. During a meditation at a South Tampa salt room, Mandy experienced what she described as something “snap all the way down” through the arm and hand that had caused her so much pain. As she walked out, a friend asked if she was okay. “I don’t know,” Mandy recalled answering. “But I think I’m gonna be.” She went home and asked her husband, Matt, to get on the massage table. If her hands could handle working on him, she reasoned, maybe she could do this again. Two and a half hours later, she reached out to two longtime clients with a CONTINUED >

She became a licensed massage therapist in 2006 and quickly earned a reputation for understanding pain and the body in ways her clients sometimes struggled to explain themselves. “I didn’t know I had a gift,” she said. An athlete growing up, Mandy carried a push-through mentality into adulthood and eventually into her business. As her reputation grew, so did her workload. Success became increasingly tied to how much she could produce, how many people she helped and how much money she made. “I used to have this lone-wolf mentality,” she said. Eventually, her body forced a different conversation. Pain and overuse began affecting the work she depended on, including a loss of dexterity in her thumb and significant pain through her shoulder, arm and fingers. A hand surgeon warned that without surgery, she could lose dexterity in her thumb completely. At nearly the same time, Mandy was navigating significant personal struggles that challenged much of the stability she had known. “I’ve always been somebody that landed on my feet,” she said. “And that was the time I couldn’t.” Shutting down the business she had worked so hard to build was devastating. Mandy remembered taking down the NOVEMB ER 2 0 2 6 | C I TYL I FE STYL E . C OM/S O UT HTA M PA

“IF YOU JUST GIVE UP, YOU’RE GOING TO BE MISSING AN AMAZING NEXT CHAPTER. ALLOW YOURSELF TO FEEL THE HUMAN EMOTIONS THAT HAPPEN BUT THEN GET CURIOUS. ASK YOURSELF, ‘WHAT IS THIS TEACHING ME?’ I AM LIVING PROOF THAT SOMETHING INCREDIBLE CAN COME NEXT.”

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simple message: “I have a table and I have my hands. I think I’m back.” One of those clients soon noticed something Mandy was only beginning to recognize herself. “You’ve fallen in love with it all over again,” she told her. Mandy agreed, “But I don’t know what that looks like.” What it looked like was not rebuilding the same life. Mandy told God that if He gave her hands back, she would listen this time. Returning to the work meant learning to do it differently. The therapist who once described herself as “no pain, no gain” became more careful, gentle and aware of the nervous system and the experiences people brought into the treatment room. She also began embracing parts of herself she previously questioned, including her intuition and her growing role as a leader and teacher. Today, success still includes ambitious goals and a growing business, but it’s no longer defined solely by how much Mandy can accomplish herself. “I want to build something that lasts,” she said. More importantly, she wants to keep the promise she made to God and her family not to run herself ragged again. It’s a different kind of strength than the one that built her first chapter. That strength told her to push harder, work more and keep going. This one has taught her to listen, receive help, embrace detours and trust that starting over does not have to mean going backward. For someone facing an unexpected change of their own, Mandy’s message was simple: “If you just give up, you’re going to be missing an amazing next chapter. Allow yourself to feel the human emotions that happen, but then get curious. Ask yourself, ‘What is this teaching me?’ I am living proof that something incredible can come next.”

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The Table They Built Together TWO CAREERS, ONE MARRIAGE AND A LIFETIME OF MAKING ROOM

There is a long table in Bridgette and Jose Bello's home that can seat two on a Tuesday and twelve, comfortably, by Saturday. But, this isn't a story about a table. It's about what the Bellos have spent most of their lives using the table for: bringing people together, making room, and rebuilding when life gets in the way. Bridgette spent 35 years in media, becoming the first female publisher of the Tampa Bay Business Journal and later founding Tampa Bay Business & Wealth. She was paid to publish stories, but her real gift was always "seeing" people who should know one another and who belonged in a room together before anyone thought to invite them. Jose learned his version of "the table" much earlier. His family left Cuba in 1967 and started over in Chicago. Soon after, his father found a battered table someone had discarded and carried it home. It was missing a leg, but it was theirs. Jose's mother, a seamstress, re-covered salvaged chairs. "That table felt like a million bucks," Jose said. "It was our first table in America." Jose spent 13 years at The Tampa Tribune before the newspaper industry began competing against technology. Along the way, he walked into Bridgette's office with an idea and fifteen minutes to sell it. "The pitch was good," he quipped. "He was better," Bridgette counters. They are not a couple who agree for sport. Jose will challenge something Bridgette considers obvious, and she will challenge why he's challenging her — dinner around their table has a way of becoming a strategy session, which they call their SWOT analysis. For Bridgette, the biggest professional shift came when she finally asked herself a question she'd avoided for decades: "What would I build if it were totally mine?" The answer was,

ARTICLE BY MANDY SCHULIS | PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANA LAURA ACOSTA PHOTOGRAPHY

H OM E TOWN H E R O | L I FE + CU LT U RE

and is, The Executive Collective: a confidential, private peer group for owners, founders, and CEOs weary of carrying the weight of their decisions alone. For decades, she watched leaders shoulder alone what they couldn't safely talk about anywhere else. So instead of writing about the problem, she set out to solve it. "For the first time," she said, "nobody upstream or downstream gets to decide who belongs there, or what the business is allowed to become." Jose calls it "the thing I'd been trying to get her to do for years." His own work has evolved toward what's always fit him best: relationships. Today, as Business Development Officer at Servis1st Bank, he's the guy who remembers, follows up, and makes business feel personal, not transactional. "My whole life had led up to it," he said — the same instinct about people that once won him his greatest sale of all: himself, to his wife. Life has given the Bellos plenty of practice at rebuilding. Bridgette survived breast cancer and a difficult professional challenge; Jose faced an eliminated position through no fault of his own. When the 2024 hurricanes devastated their home a second time, the rebuild was messy, expensive, and slow — but they did it anyway, determined that others would always have somewhere to land.

"A life well lived is one where the people around your table are better for having shared a meal with you. Not richer. Not more accomplished. Better."

CONTINUED >

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"For the first time," she said, "nobody upstream or downstream gets to decide who belongs there, or what the business is allowed to become." Jose calls it "the thing I'd been trying to get her to do for years."

Their home feels less like an asset and more like a place people are meant to gather. They host a 40-plus person "Friendsgiving" every year that's become a tradition for many. Their children come home. Their grandchildren will grow up knowing there's always a seat for them, and friends often stay longer than anyone planned. And yes, Bridgette cares what the table looks like, down to the pumpkins and flowers. But the pretty, performative part is not the point; the point is what happens once everyone sits down. A good night around that table ends with people knowing each other better than before, maybe finding a commonality they can't ignore. "A life well lived," Bridgette said, "is one where the people around your table are better for having shared a meal with you. Not richer. Not more accomplished. Better." That is the life Bridgette and Jose are building, finally on their own terms — not because they needed a bigger table, but because they learned long ago how to make room for the people they invite to it. And if they need a bigger table? They'll build one.

H OM E TOWN H E R O | L I FE + CU LT U RE

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SPEED ARTICLE BY JOANN CHANG PHOTOGRAPHY BY GREY BULL RESCUE

NEED

Rescue when there is no one else to turn to The calls sound the same no matter where they come from. Syria. Haiti. Northern Israel. A vacation that turned into something else entirely. “I found you online. I called the State Department. I called my congressman. No one will get back to me. I called the embassy a thousand times. What do I do?” Bryan Stern has a practiced answer, and it starts with small talk. Are you an American citizen? Where are you from? Oh, no kidding. I’m from Florida too. The questions aren’t idle. They buy a few seconds of calm and build a little trust, because by the time someone reaches Grey Bull Rescue, they’ve usually run out of numbers to call. “If you’re calling us, you’ve called everyone else,” Stern said. “We are the last resort, the last hope.” Stern is the Founder and Chairman of Grey Bull Rescue, a Tampa-based, veteran-led nonprofit whose teams include U.S. Special Operations and Intelligence Community veterans and civilian volunteers who go rescue Americans and allies when conventional options have failed. Eight hundred eleven missions. 8,761 lives. Every one of them, Stern will tell you, started with a phone call like that one. The Grey Bull Rescue story starts during the withdrawal from Afghanistan. “We started off wanting to rescue and evacuate our friends from Afghanistan, interpreters, commandos, sources that we handled,” shared Stern. “But we learned there were Americans left behind after the military left. I love my Afghan friends. I’m

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alive today because of them. But the reality is I’m an American. So, Americans come first. It didn’t occur to us at the time that Americans would get left behind.” That effort inspired the creation of Grey Bull Rescue. They work in the “grey space,” in places the government can’t get to or won’t go. When red tape delays action, Grey Bull is able take action at “The Speed of Need.” The work is usually eight time zones away. Sometimes it’s ten minutes down the road. When Hurricane Helene came up the Gulf Coast, Stern and his team staged out of his home in Tampa. With trucks loaded with chainsaws, ropes, and an inflatable boat, they decided to take a slow look around, sticking to the elevated stretch of the Veterans where the water couldn’t reach them. That’s where they were when they got the call. The storm surge had pushed six or seven feet of salt water up around a home off Spanish Main. The water caught an electric car on fire with the family still inside the home. Tampa Fire tried to reach them and couldn’t get through water that deep. They took shelter with neighbors and made the call to Stern. Forty-two minutes later, Stern’s four-man team had walked every person out of both houses, along with their dogs. “We got out of there without anyone getting wet,” shared Stern. It’s the same model Grey Bull uses in Kyiv, Port-au-Prince and countless cities across the world: a call from people who have exhausted official channels, answered by a team close enough, capable enough, agile and brave enough to act. Ask Stern what

the community can do to support their efforts, and he doesn’t reach for the dramatic version. He doesn’t need more volunteers on helicopters. He wants a budget he can plan around. “A nonprofit is like any other business in that we need to forecast,” he said. “With sponsors who give monthly, the team can forecast, staff, and be staged before the call comes so we can act fast. “ And he’s turning people away. Not often, and never easily, but the calls come in faster than the funding does. “Every day we get calls and we’re having to say no, which is terrible. What I know is that if I had the funding, I could save more lives,” shared Stern. Which returns him to the closest thing he has to a philosophy: Don’t be a spectator. “Everyone can do something,” he said. “Everyone."

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C I T Y L I FEST Y L E G I V ES BAC K

GIVING TOGETHER A Community That Shows Up

Every year, City Lifestyle sends checks to hundreds of families in need across the country through our annual Giving Campaign and our non-profit arm, Kingdom Building Foundation. But none of it would be possible without you. We can only help the people we know about, and

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that’s where our readers come in. If you know someone quietly struggling, whether it’s a single parent, a senior citizen, or a family facing something they never saw coming, we want to hear their story. Nominations are what make this whole campaign possible.

We provided a chair lift for a teenager paralyzed in a gymnastics accident so she could move freely through her own home again. We helped a child who lost an eye to cancer get the prosthetic because insurance wouldn’t cover it. We covered dental work for a man who needed his smile back just to walk into a job interview. We got heat turned back on for a family who had spent part of the winter without it. We helped a family keep up with bills while a husband and father fought pancreatic cancer, and we helped another family cover medical expenses after the unimaginable loss of a child. These are just a few examples of some of the hundreds of individuals that have been helped through nominations from readers like you. None of it happens without someone noticing first and speaking up. "We don't just send checks," says Steven Schowengerdt, CEO and founder of City Lifestyle.

“We send a message: You are seen, you are loved, and you are not forgotten.” Together with City Lifestyle President Matthew Perry, Steven has helped shape this into a tradition that goes far beyond the holiday season. "This is about community," Matthew says. "We believe we've been blessed, so now we get to be a blessing." Often, the person making the nomination gets just as much out of the experience as the recipient. There's something powerful about being part of the reason someone else's burden got lighter, especially when that need might have otherwise gone unnoticed. The campaign is completely confidential. No names are ever shared or publicized, and nominating someone is as simple as telling us their story. We are looking for those in our communities who fall between the cracks of getting help, and together as a community, we can meet those needs.

Nominations open November 1st and close December 3rd. To nominate someone in your community, follow @CityLifestyle on Instagram and find the form in our bio, or visit KingdomBuildingFoundation.org.

This season, giving starts with you. Let's do it together. Nominate someone in need today.

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A Recipe

For Success It’s 11:30 a.m. and the restaurant’s humming. Teachers slip in to score a coveted table from the young host. Waitstaff bustles by, hustling plates of Nashville hot chicken to tables before the lunch bell. This is Knight’s Tavern, a front-facing, student-run restaurant where Culinary Arts Instructor and Robinson High School alum Chef Mitchell Smithey is doing far more than teaching recipes. He’s using the pace and pressure of a real kitchen to build something less tangible but far more

lasting: careers, confidence, and the kind of soft skills that open doors long after graduation. Mitchell Smithey never planned to be a teacher. But after a long career working as an award-winning chef in kitchens around the South, family life had him looking in a new direction. His experience made him a perfect fit for teaching in a culinary program. Within a week of securing his certification, the opportunity at Robinson was posted. “Robinson’s my alum. I graduated here, so I applied, got the job, and this is my eighth year now,” shared Smithey. The culinary space when he was hired was nothing like it is today. But when a construction project expanded to include a new Culinary Arts Lab, it presented an opportunity. The principal pushed for a front-facing restaurant as part of the renovation – and Knights Tavern was born. “This is nicer than every restaurant I’ve ever worked at. We are the only school in Hillsborough County that guests can come in off the street through our own private entrance. And it runs like a restaurant. Just run by students. They do everything. They greet the guests. They help design the menus. It is truly a student-run restaurant,” explained Smithey. Knight’s Tavern serves lunch on Thursdays and Fridays, with an added dinner service on Friday nights. “With the exception of Monday and Tuesday, when they come in, they have to prep for Thursday and Friday. When we’re not open, we’re doing sanitation and safety training, or adding a few fun things,” said Smithey. But the students in Robinson’s Culinary Arts program are learning far more than knife skills. “Cooking is what’s fun. They’ve got to learn how to communicate. To work together. To think for themselves. They learn conflict management. All those soft skills you need to be successful in life. The cooking is the easy part,” Smithey shared.

Inside Robinson High School's culinary program, students are mastering more than recipes ARTICLE BY JOANN CHANG PHOTOGRAPHY BY MITCHELL SMITHEY

LOCA L LIM E LIGH T | EDUCAT ION

Above all, Smithey wants his students prepared for a path after high school, regardless of where that path takes them. “I sit down and have a conversation with my students and help them build a plan. It doesn’t matter whether it’s college or tech school. I help them get an idea of what they want,” explained Smithey. The program is already making a difference for students as they consider what comes next. He’s had a student take the culinary program as a fun outlet from the rigors of other classes, just to change career paths. Some students are starting their own businesses with the skills learned in the program. For others, the opportunity has been truly transformative. “One of my most successful stories is about Milo. Last year, Milo pretty much ran things. Of all the students I’ve ever had, Milo was the only one that I could hand my keys and know everything’s going to be done exactly the way it needs to be. It was just amazing,” shared Smithey. As tickets stack up and students hustle between stations, it’s clear what’s happening inside Robinson’s gleaming, student-run restaurant is about far more than food. Here, teenagers are testing out careers,

Cooking is what’s fun. They’ve got to learn how to communicate. To work together. To think for themselves. discovering unexpected paths, and learning skills that will carry them well beyond the kitchen. Smithey hopes the wider community will see this room the way he does: as a place to gather, to mentor, and to give students a taste of the world they’re preparing to enter. For the students who work in Knight’s Tavern, each service offers another opportunity to practice the skills—and discover the possibilities—that extend far beyond the kitchen.

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T H E A R T F U L TA BL E

The team behind Honeybee Home shares the design secrets behind beautiful, memorable tablescapes ARTICLE BY LAURA BLEACHER

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For Robin Taylor and Laura Bleacher, the mother-daughter duo behind Honeybee Home, setting a beautiful table is about much more than choosing pretty plates. It’s about creating a feeling…one that tells your guests they’re welcome, they’re special, and you’re happy they’re there.

And a memorable tablescape doesn’t require an entirely new collection for every occasion. Robin and Laura started each of these three looks with the same classic white dinner plates, proving that a few thoughtful layers can completely transform your table. For a casual brunch, they embraced one of the prettiest trends: pink-and-white gingham. A cheerful gingham tablecloth sets the tone, while pink-and-gold chargers and heirloom china salad plates edged in delicate pink flowers give simple white dinnerware a charming new personality. Vintage plates are having a moment, and mixing them with newer pieces makes a table feel collected rather than overly coordinated. Instead of a traditional floral centerpiece, Robin and Laura layered moss down the center of the table, tucking in ceramic flowers (Honeybee Home best-sellers) and preserved boxwood topiaries finished with pink ribbons. The result is playful, fresh and perfect for lingering over brunch. For an elegant dinner party, the white plates take on an entirely different look. Gold chargers add polish, while blue-andwhite chinoiserie pieces create a timeless palette. Patterned napkins with embroidered scalloped edges bring softness and detail, and fluted blue champagne glasses paired with a beautiful chinoiserie champagne bucket make the evening feel extra special. Candles sprinkled throughout provide the finishing touch: flattering light and instant ambiance. For a Thanksgiving gathering, Robin and Laura let the beauty of the table itself shine, using a runner instead of a full tablecloth. The same white dinner plates are layered over gold chargers, this time dressed for the season with a festive napkin and gold sunflower accent that makes each place CONTINUED >

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“Their best advice? Layer, mix and have a little fun. Combine heirlooms with new finds, play with color and texture, and don’t worry about everything matching perfectly.” setting pop. A statement gold turkey takes center stage, surrounded by bittersweet and maize corn for an abundant autumn feel, while pinecone-shaped candles add warmth and whimsy. Colorful glassware and a place card or festive napkin ring can add another personal touch your guests will remember. Their best advice? Layer, mix and have a little fun. Combine heirlooms with new finds, play with color and texture, and don’t worry about everything matching perfectly. The most inviting tables have personality.

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As hosting and gift-giving season arrives, Honeybee Home is filled with tabletop decor, entertaining essentials and thoughtful gifts to help make celebrations beautiful. Because ultimately, the art of the table isn’t about perfection…it’s about making the people gathered around it feel at home. Honeybee Home 2124 S Dale Mabry Hwy, Suite 200 Tampa, FL 33629 shophoneybeehome.com

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