IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Six generations in Boca Grande, Caro Onofrio

Usually, getting sick or injured is a pain – in more ways than one. In Boca Grande, though, it is made less so because of the people who work at the Boca Grande Health Clinic. One of those people who makes the trip to the Clinic more bearable is Cara Onofrio. She is one of the people who greets patients at the front desk. Her title is Patient Representative, and her main job is handling billing, including making sure insurance gets billed accurately.

Practically everyone in town knows Cara. She grew up on the island and even went to the Boca Grande Preschool, as well as Vineland Elementary, L.A. Ainger Middle School and Lemon Bay High School. She is a fifth generation Boca Grande native. Her great-grandfather, William Sprott, used to run the ferry to the island, back before the bridge connected the island to the mainland.

“I’m actually fifth generation on my mom’s side; then, on my father’s side, I’m third generation, so we’ve been here a long time … a very long time,” she said. Her grandmother worked at Lemon Bay High School when Cara was a student, so there was no such thing as anonymity growing up.

She actually enjoys the semi-celebrity status of being a staple of Boca Grande. She tried moving away, but that did not last long. “I thought I wanted to live in the big city, but then decided I really did not enjoy it. I really like Boca Grande, so I came home,” Cara said.

It was shortly after high school when she moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, for about two years and attended Johnson & Wales. She found the big city life was not for her. “I lived in Charlotte, right in the heart of the city, for a couple of years,” she said. “I thought it was what I wanted to do, but I almost felt claustrophobic there. But once you get back here you see the horizon and it just makes you feel better. That’s why I stayed.”

Her husband Nick is originally from Connecticut, although they met at Lemon Bay, and have been together for 10 years, living in this area all that time. “He always wants to go back to the cold and snow, but it’s not for me! I’ll stay here,” Cara said. “I’ll take a hurricane over that.” 

Now Cara and Nick have a sixth-generation Boca Grande native in the family, their 4-year-old daughter, Emilia, or Emmy. They live in South Gulf Cove, and Emmy is enrolled at the Boca Grande Preschool, following in her mother’s footsteps. She takes gymnastics lessons and loves her cats, the beach and being outdoors a lot. There is always family to visit, too, with Cara’s mother, Ruth Amen, having five siblings. Nick’s family is close by also. 

“All the family is still in Florida, everybody’s here!” Cara noted. “Nobody really ever left. Why would you leave when you have paradise?” That makes it especially nice for Emmy, who gets to grow up around her family, and around friends who feel like family. 

Cara has been a member of the Clinic staff for about three years. She is working to complete her bachelor’s degree in health administration. Mark Driscoll, CEO of the Clinic, said Cara’s desire to continue her education in the administrative aspects of health care, while actually putting into practice what she is learning, is “a testament to her commitment to quality.” In return, Cara is grateful for the help the Clinic has given in her quest to complete her degree.

“I have about a year and a half left in school,” she said, admitting it is a challenge. “It’s a very full plate. Most of my free time is spent doing things like taking my daughter to gymnastics, or doing homework. I don’t have a lot of free time to myself, these days.”

But she is happy to pull all these challenges together and work hard for the satisfaction of being able to help the Clinic and the people of Boca Grande. She has wanted to work in health care since she was a child, she said. She sees her studies as a way to broaden her skills and help the Clinic as it grows.

“I’m doing it really to further myself here, because there’s a lot of things that I could do and advance a bit here, but I need to have a little bit more school under my belt. I also really like doing HR (human resources) and helping out in that department, so I hope to do a little bit more there, as well as more billing aspects. It’ll just be an extra boost behind my name that I always really wanted to complete. And with our building a new clinic, we’ll definitely need whatever I can offer to help with that.”

Dedication to the Clinic and the people of Boca Grande motivates her deeply.

“What I like most about working at the Clinic is that we are a smaller practice that can focus on individual patient needs and make a real difference in our patients’ quality of care. Being on a small island, we are lucky enough to know most of our patients personally, and every one of us is invested in their care – from the physicians and clinical staff to the administrative team.”

She added: “I’m looking forward to the expanded clinical services the ‘Clinic of the Future’ will offer, and continue to provide exceptional care to our island community.”

This dedication is not new.

“I use to come here as a kid, and I remember Deb, the nurse who was here, from my childhood.” Even then, she knew the Clinic would be an ideal place for her. “I really am a little squeamish at the sight of blood, so I didn’t really ever want to do nursing or be on that side of health care. But I like working with numbers, and the billing side of it. I think I always knew I would end up on this side of it.” she said.

“After I went to school, there was not an opportunity out here, so I was waiting for maybe something to come up. And then, a few years ago, there was an ad in the Beacon and my mom said, ‘You have to apply!’ So I did, and thankfully, it worked out.” 

She arrived on the job just after the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic was trailing off. She was, however, part of the heroic efforts the Clinic made to help people following Hurricane Ian. Both events were “pretty crazy for us,” she admitted.

She lived in Boca Grande when Hurricane Charley made its way through. 

“My family refused to leave for Charley, so I kind of expected it [Ian] was going to be bad,” she recalled, “but I had no idea it was going to be as bad as it was. It was beyond what I thought. We actually stayed in Placida, at my aunt’s condo, thinking that, since it was newer, it would be safer. It was probably the worst place we could be. We stayed in her little pantry for like nine hours – all three of us, plus our two cats. It was crazy. The cats were fine. I don’t think they were phased by any of it.”

Anyone with a cat knows this scenario. And the Onofrio family is a real cat-loving one. Cara said she regularly has to talk Nick down “off the ledge,” persuading him not to bring home another cat. One of the two cats they have has been with Cara for 14 years – four years longer than Nick has been with her. This cat is Kitty. The other is younger, and is named Loki.

While there is not much leisure time in Cara’s life, she does manage to relax on the beach. She also likes to write and read. Her writing tends to be  poetry or short essays on her personal thoughts. She also relaxes by doing yard work. She loves to dig up trees and play in her backyard, she said. And of course, there is fishing: “My dad was a fishing captain out here, so I learned to fish probably before I could even walk.” 

“I roller blade in my free time,” she added. “There’s a 5K I want to try to do in October. I am not sure I’ll be ready for that, though. School … school’s my hobby now.” Cara is happy she can raise her daughter in Boca Grande. It is a good place in which to grow up.

“I think growing up in Boca Grande was a really unique experience,” she said. “You had that sense of community, which is why I like being out here as an adult. And I hope to give Emmy that same kind of feeling of community. There are not a lot of other places that have feel, where everybody kind of knows each other and everybody knows your business, and it’s a good thing because you know what’s going on and you can’t really get into trouble. I did not like that as a kid, but I do appreciate it now, as an adult.”

She continued: “There have been a lot of changes, like on 4th Street, there were really tall pine trees when I was a kid that are gone now. I remember the Methodist Church. When I was a kid it was just a really small church, with a little room you went in for daycare. I took piano classes in it. It’s different, but it still has the same feel and a lot of the same familiar people out here. And it’s nice, too, because a lot of the patients that we have at the Clinic knew me from when I was a kid, so I kind of have a little bit of a background with the people, and that’s nice. It’s nice. I think you have people who are looking out for you. Even if it’s not spoken, they have your back, and everybody’s looking out for each other. It’s nice.”