Shawny Robey, CEO of LightShare Behavior Wellness and Recovery, has spent three years leading an organization that has served Sarasota for roughly 50 years, most of that time under the name First Step of Sarasota. The rebrand to LightShare, she explains, was intentional: the name signals that clients in crisis are not walking through it alone. It came alongside a broader philosophical shift toward what Robey calls a no-wrong-door policy, meaning anyone can walk into any LightShare location, including a 24-hour crisis unit on 10th Street, and be seen regardless of ability to pay.
Robey describes an organization that spans the full spectrum of behavioral health, from a 24/7 inpatient detox and crisis unit to a soon-to-open walk-in center designed to feel as low-stakes as an urgent care visit. LightShare also runs a residential program for pregnant women struggling with substances, housing mothers and their infants for up to a year and helping deliver more than 600 babies without exposing them to ongoing addiction. As a nonprofit, the organization takes insurance and private pay but relies on county, state and philanthropic funding to serve clients who cannot afford care, and Robey is candid that mental health and substance use causes draw less philanthropic attention locally than causes like animal welfare.
Building a modern detox
The organization's current capital campaign centers on replacing a medical detox facility that Robey says dates back to the 1980s or 90s, aiming to consolidate the crisis unit, detox and new walk-in center onto one connected campus, the same way a hospital keeps its emergency departments together. She frames the need in stark terms: the community's mental health infrastructure has not kept pace with its wealth or growth.
From big pharma to the nonprofit side
Robey's path to the CEO role ran through a business degree, a master's in communication, a stint in marketing and PR for a federally qualified health system, and a role in neuroscience marketing at a major pharmaceutical company, a job she says put her on what she calls the wrong side of the industry, helping market medications to people who already had access to them. An MBA from Florida International University and later an innovation certificate from Harvard rounded out the pivot into healthcare administration and, eventually, LightShare's top job.
Roundabouts and city planners
Asked for her take on the roundabouts, Robey deflects diplomatically, praising the city and county planners who sit on LightShare's board as thoughtful, even as she jokes that a roundabout project near her own townhouse knocked out her cable line for a week.
What you'll take away
- LightShare rebranded from First Step of Sarasota roughly three years ago, shifting toward a no-wrong-door policy where anyone can walk in regardless of ability to pay
- The organization runs a 24/7 crisis and detox unit, a soon-to-open walk-in center, and a residential program for pregnant women that has helped deliver more than 600 babies
- LightShare's capital campaign is raising funds for a new medical detox facility to replace one dating back to the 1980s or 90s
- Robey's career path moved from pharmaceutical marketing, which she felt served people who already had access to care, into nonprofit healthcare administration
- She also sits on the board of the Suncoast Partnership to End Homelessness, citing the overlap between housing instability and behavioral health
“You're not on this journey alone, you're with us and we're doing this together.”
“Everyone deserves a quality of life and everyone deserves access to care.”
Places mentioned: 10th Street, Rosemary District