Kelly Harris is used to her business neighbor, Mandy Bucci, dropping in to strike up a conversation or share a hug. 

Harris, who moved her Kelly’s Kreations Gifts & Flowers shop to Main Street in Alachua around 12 years ago, said Bucci’s recent opening of The Mustard Seed Collection next door was a breath of fresh air because of her friendship and similar passion for the community and Main Street in particular. 

But Bucci’s visit to Harris’s shop on Tuesday was more than a regular visit. It was a celebration.  

Earlier that day, the Levitt Foundation announced Harris’s nonprofit Josh’s Place as one of 26 nationwide recipients of its 2026 to 2028 music series grant.  

Over the next three years, Levitt will give $120,000 in matching funds to Josh’s Place to host 30 free outdoor concerts—10 each year—in the city of Alachua, aiming to bring the community together and revive Main Street. 

“Considering we had 300 cities apply, 100 cities got to vote, and out of those 100 cities, we came in 14th, that says it all,” Harris said. “Talk about community and support.” 

Harris, who said she works until things work, partnered with Bucci and the Alachua Business League to get Josh’s Place secured as the grant recipient because she felt Levitt’s mission matched the organization’s. 

Founded in 2022, Josh’s Place exists to provide a place for high schoolers and adults to know they belong, a desire embedded in the organization’s website URL: knowyoubelong.com.  

Josh’s Place hosts weekly gatherings in the gym of Alachua’s First Baptist Church (14005 NW 146 Ave.) on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 to 8 p.m. Attendees can play volleyball, basketball, cornhole, listen to live music, do crafts or just have someone to talk to. 

It also holds pop-up events such as grief share groups and annual community-wide fundraisers, like a golf tournament at Turkey Creek. 

Bucci said a lot of the details for how, when and where the Levitt concerts will happen still need to be worked out, but the goal is Friday nights starting in April. She said she eventually wants them to run in tandem with Market on Main, a farmers market she helped start this year, also with a mission to bring people together and revive Alachua’s Main Street. 

Harris and Bucci also still need to find a sponsor for the concerts that can raise funds to match Levitt’s investment. 

“I’m the new kid on the block. I came with a lot of energy and passion because I love it here, and we’re making it our own,” she said. “I’m just trying to help excellent people like Kelly carry the torch and hopefully revive Main Street.” 

Harris said securing the Levitt grant is exciting since it will bring awareness to Josh’s Place. But the celebration also opens deep wounds. Harris never wanted to start the nonprofit—though she now lives her life to see it grow. 

“I don’t think I would call myself the founder of Josh’s Place because it was not my idea, nor my desire. But I am the president,” she said. “Josh is my son, and he went home.” 

Harris remembers her second child and only son, Josh Harris, as smart, athletic and well-loved. 

Josh played baseball for Santa Fe High School before graduating in 2019 and landing a job in the industrial electrical field. He was on the cusp of a promotion and selling his Jeep to buy his own truck and boat. 

But following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, Harris remembers Josh appearing isolated and sad before finding out he had believed a lie. 

“Our pastor had said Josh always told [him] he didn’t feel like he had a place among his friends, that he didn’t really have a place to belong,” she said. “He got hooked on that vaping thing. I remember he told me one time, ‘Mom, I just feel socially awkward.’ And I’m thinking, you’re my kid, you’re just like me. But he just believed that lie.” 

Harris said that because of vaping, Josh started experiencing night terrors where he couldn’t wake up from bad dreams. 

She later learned from Suwannee Health and Rehabilitation Center that people who vape can get terrors as their bodies go through withdrawals during the night.  

During a week when Josh and his dad planned to go golfing together, Josh took his life early in the morning.  

“Was it a night terror? We don’t know,” Harris said. “Everybody was like, ‘oh, mental health,’ and I’m like no, my son was addicted. I’m going to call a spade a spade.” 

Harris said the idea for Josh’s Place came from a community member who told her they couldn’t stop seeing the words “Josh’s Place” everywhere they went after Josh died. They believed there needed to be somewhere people could belong, like Josh wanted.  

Harris said she closed her eyes, and there was the logo: an alpine ski lodge with a fishing hook and a heart for the apostrophe. 

“Josh loved to fish and in the back of my mind I heard, ‘and you’re going to make fishers of people,’” she said. “It had to look like wood because it was the year to build people up. It had to be an open home because we need to be open to everybody, and it had to be half of a home, because this [world] is just half of our home.” 

Harris said in the few years Josh’s Place has been running, she’s learned to wire her jaw shut from dropping open at the hundreds of stories people carry into the group.  

Some kids have buried their parents because of addiction; others have lost friends to gang violence. But Harris said whether they come for games or to have someone to talk to, all of them are just regular people like Josh was. 

“Somebody told me one time, Josh’s Place is a place for troubled kids. No, it’s a place for kids to stay out of trouble,” Harris said. “I tell everybody, Josh’s Place is a place for kids older than me, down to high school age, to have a place to belong.” 

Because the community started Josh’s Place, Harris said it will take the community to keep it going. It needs regular food donations, volunteer mentors and teachers who can show attendees new skills, and monetary donations for a permanent building fund.  

Harris plans to air a video about Josh produced by his friends at the new Levitt concerts. 

“I don’t know where Josh’s Place will [go], I really don’t. I’m leaving it up to the community to kind of decide and make it happen,” Harris said. “I’m going to just do the work until the work is done.”