Seagrasses are under threat worldwide from multiple anthropogenic stressors, due to climate change and poor water quality. In Florida, these stressors have resulted in extreme, large scale die-off events. Restoration is one tool to mitigate these events but effective restoration relies on choosing donor populations for cultivation that will be resilient to stressors that threaten seagrass. There is an urgent need to better understand seagrass tolerance to multiple stressors and incorporate resilience to current and future stressors and their interactions into restoration planning and techniques. Further, the slow-growing climax species turtle grass, Thlassia testudium, is difficult to restore from fragments. We are developing methods to restore T. testudinum using shoreline collected ‘salvage’ seedlings from a broad geographic scale to incorporate genetic variation and population structure across Florida. We present findings on collection and intraspecific variation among seedlings, as well as experimental data on stress tolerance and proteomic data on stress response. Seedlings vary in morphology and genetic composition across field collection sites. Salvaged seedlings showed high stress tolerance across all groups with some individuals more tolerant than others. Intraspecific variation in stress response did not correspond to collection site. Proteomic analysis showed significant differences between stressed and non-stressed seedlings in protein composition and concentrations with some variation between individuals, indicating the potential to develop protein biomarkers for stress response. Our research will contribute to the testing of novel seagrass restoration tools to inform the development of the 10-year Florida Seagrass Restoration Plan under the Seagrass Restoration Technology Development Initiative.