Who We Are
Rotary is where neighbors, friends, and problem-solvers share ideas, join leaders, and take action to create lasting change.
The Rotary Club of Boca Raton consists of 80+ community-minded business leaders from the greater Boca Raton area. Our members focus on making our community a better place to live, work, and play by inspiring and uplifting today’s youth to become tomorrow’s leaders by sharing our virtues and values. Some of our community service projects include: Providing college scholarships for high school seniors, fostering the performing arts in today’s youth, promoting STEM & robotics to middle and high school students, providing dictionaries for Boca Raton’s 3rd graders, assisting local foster children and educating families in need. Rotary’s motto is “Service above Self” and our club members live by that every day to “Change Lives and Build Futures.”
Our club was founded in 1957 by a group of local business professional that wanted to give back to the local community. The Rotary Club of Boca Raton is one of over 35,000 rotary clubs comprising over 1.2 million members around the world. Rotary is a non-political, non-religious organization who mission is to provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through our fellowship of business, professional, and community leaders. Rotary’s main areas of focus are:
- Promote peace
- Fight disease
- Provide clean water, sanitation, and hygiene
- Save mothers and children
- Support education
- Grow local economies
We meet every Wednesday at 12:00PM for lunch at The Pavilion Grille in Boca Raton. Our lunches provide a chance for our members to network with other “Service above Self” minded individuals, learn from a variety of outside guest speakers, and work together on planning community service projects. Additional our club has a lot of activities outside of our weekly lunch from community service projects to casual social events. We also host three major events a year including OPAL, Future Stars, and The Pirate Invasion Run. Rotary is more than a service club, it’s a group of your 80 closest friends who are focused on making the world a better place by helping others and living life by the Four Way Test.
Signature Events
OPAL Awards
The Outstanding People And Leaders Awards recognizes citizens in Boca Raton who have demonstrated an on-going commitment to serve their neighbors and our City through Philanthropic, Professional Leadership (Business), Education, Governmental(Civic), Community Service and Medical Service Endeavors. Every January, over 350+ members from our community come together to honor the recipients and raise money for the missions and projects of The Rotary Club of Boca Raton including youth college scholarships.
This one of a kind of event has been recognized by Rotary International receiving a Significant Achievement Award of which only a select few are given out to the over 35,000 Rotary Clubs around the world. Every year the event is a sellout so we recommend purchasing your tickets early to celebrate the people that make Boca Raton one of the best places to live, work, play.
Future Stars
For over 17 years Future Stars has been one of South Florida’s most prestigious middle and high school performing arts competition. In partnership with the City of Boca Raton, the dance and vocal show is hosted live at Mizner Park Amphitheater to over 1000+ people produced by a professional light and sound crew on the same stage some of the nation’s top talent performs. Every year students from across South Florida audition to make the less than 30 finalist acts for the show that will be judged by some of the region’s top talent. Many of our past performers have moved on to the country’s top educational institutions including Juilliard, NYU Tish, and Northwestern and several have become household names in their professional career.
Auditions are open to all middle and high school performing arts students in the South Florida area to compete in our vocal and dance categories. Of the over 100 plus applications we receive every year only the top 25-30 acts make it to become a Future Stars Finalist. We are excited to see this year’s top talent!
Pirate 5K/10K
For over 20 years The Rotary Club of Boca Raton has been helping put on a community Run. Over the years Rotary has partnered with D.A.R.E., the YMCA, XXXX, and many others to promote healthy outdoor fun. This year we have a very special run planned in partnership with the Florence Fuller Child Development Center. Arrrrrrrgh you ready for it?
Grab ye matey, and your favorite parrot, and come run for goodwill and better friendships benefiting the kids of Florence Fuller at our Pirate Invasion Run. Hosted on the world famous A1A Blvd, you will be running along the beaches that centuries ago the real “Pirates of the Caribbean” set foot on. We want to see you best pirate attire and your fastest run times. It’s a friendly family event with special costume contest, live entertainment, breakfast, bounce houses, a special kids run. This professionally timed race by Runner’s Edge is just not for “yar fun luvin running matey” its a beautiful course for professional runners too. Well if be it they like to be chased by pirates! Arrrgh…
Community Projects
Latest Happenings
Donna Holland, MD on How to be a Good Mentor
We were pleased to have Donna Holand, MD as our guest speaker. Donna is a recently retired Psychiatrist. She serves as the guest mentor trainer for the Viner Family Foundation. Mentoring has been [...]
Craft Talk: Dennis Frisch, DPM
We were pleased to have Dr. Dennis Frisch do a Craft Talk today. Dennis is a 2 time Past President of the club. Dennis R. Frisch, DPM, is a board-certified podiatrist and foot [...]
Jeff Gordon, Champions Empowering Champions
We were pleased to have Jeff Gordon, partner at the personal injury law firm Lesser, Lesser, Landy & Smith, PLLC, as our guest speaker. Jeff is chairman of the Board of Directors for [...]
Dr. Chris Synder, CEO, The Dreyfoos School of the Arts Foundation
We were pleased to have Dr. Chris Snyder, CEO, Dreyfoos School of the Arts Foundation as our guest speaker. Chris gave a good overview of the School and the many sub-areas of the [...]
Amoy Gordon, MSW, Association of Care Giving Youth
We were pleased to have Amoy Gordon Project Director of the Association of Care Giving Youth as our guest speaker. Here are some facts a bout the Association. American Association of Caregiving Youth [...]
Ron Torro, President of New World Angels on How to be an Angel Investor
We were pleased to have Ron Tarro, President of New World Angels, as our guest speaker. Ron Tarro is a Florida angel investor and the President of New World Angels, a long-standing Florida [...]
Jamie Serino, Sr., Director of Philanthropy at the Fuller Center and Jan Cairnes, CEO, The Hanley Foundation
We were fortunate to have a ‘double header’ this week with two speakers. The first talk was given by Jamie Serino, Sr., Director of Philanthropy at the Fuller Center. For more than 50 [...]
Doug & Kris Amorello: Lobster Farming
We were delighted to have Member Kris Amorello and her husband Doug as our guest speakers this week. They gave a fascinating talk about farming of lobsters sometimes just called ‘Lobster Fishing.’ Here [...]
Mihai Fonoage, Modernizing Medicine
We were pleased to have Mihai Fonoage, VP of Engineering at Modernizing Medicine as our guest speaker. The company has its headquarters locally in the BRIC development. Modernizing Medicine, Inc., is a United [...]
New Member: April Lewis – Changing the World to Become a Better Place
The Club was pleased to induct April Lewis as a new member. She was nominated by Spencer Siegel. April had a wonderful and amazing mom and storybook childhood. She skipped two grades and [...]
Tom Wood, Retired Boca Raton Fire Chief, re: Anthrax Terrorist Attack
We were delighted to have Tom Wood, retired and admired Boca Raton Fire Chief as our guest speaker. Fire Chief Wood brought his new “duty” as a chronicler of Boca’s notorious anthrax incident. [...]
New Member: Jim Bulvidas
The Club was pleased to induct Jim Bulvidas as a new member. Jim grew up in Cherry Hill, NJ and attended the local schools in the area. He then joined the US Air [...]
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