Message from Our Foundation President

2023 was a particularly good year for the Lighthouse, we had over 18,000 visitors. But if January ‘24 is any indication, we are going to have a GREAT 2024 as far as visitors are concerned. We had a 79 % increase in the number of visitors this January vs January 2023. Of special note, we are seeing an increase in the number of educational tours; we had four tours in 2023 and in January alone we had three tours with more scheduled for the upcoming months, thanks to Lisa Wilson and Kate Chase, our Education Committee Co-chairs. .

At the beginning of February 2024, Cape Canaveral Lighthouse Foundation (CCLF) hosted the Florida Light-house Association (FLA) winter meeting. The meeting was held at the Beachside Motel in Cocoa Beach and was attended by sixty-six people, of which about sixty were from out of the area (more on this later). Becky Zingarelli was the main speaker, and she gave an outstanding speech explaining how we formed the museum and what we are planning to do with the next two cottages. In the afternoon, the group visited the lighthouse, and everyone was impressed with what CCLF had done since the last FLA visit in February 2019 when the museum was still under construction.

In the previous paragraph, I mentioned that about sixty people were from out of the area. This was important because the County wants to know if our Lighthouse brings visitors into the county to spend money on hotel rooms, meals, etc. before they invest in our future requests for grants. To meet their requirements, we have contracted with an independent study group to con-duct a Return-on-Investment analysis which will help determine our contribution to tourism in Brevard County. Hopefully, the results of this study will be used to qualify CCLF to receive a Brevard County Tourist Development Council (TDC) Capital Facilities Grant. The TDC was the source of our $500,000 grant in 2018 which allowed us to construct the museum.

Earlier this year, we received a TDC Cultural Support Grant of $25K. The purpose of that grant is to bring visitors to Brevard County. We must use half of the money, $12.5K on out of County marketing. We are currently spending about $5K on Orlando radio station WMFE NPR radio ads and about $8K on Facebook ads.

Every year I look forward to an annual event hosted by the US Space Force — Descendants Day. Once again CCLF is assisting the Space Force with Descendants Day on March 9, 2024. Descendants Day was started by the Air Force so that people could visit the cemeteries where their ancestors are buried at least once a year. Descendants Day is also a time to talk with the descendants and gain knowledge about the history of the Cape and the people who lived there before it became a military base. They are eager and happy to share stories about their ancestors and what it was like to live on the Cape. One of them told me that his grandfather killed 175 rattle snakes the first year he lived where the landing zones are now.

On a final note, we always include a Sponsor page in the Canaveral Beacon newsletter because our sponsors are an important part of community support, and a large contribution to all that CCLF has accomplished. Please check out the Lighthouse Sponsors on the last page (also, on the Sponsor Board in our museum) and give them your support when you can.

Please visit our website https://canaverallight.org for additional information.

Thank you for your help in keeping our light shining into the future.

Ron