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
Ruth Bowling – AdventHealth on Partnering with Rotary to Fix Cleft Lips in Latin America
We were pleased to have Ruth Bowling of AdventHealth as our guest speaker. Ruth is a graduate of Atlantic Union College. Prior to coming on board at AdventHealth, she worked for Brown & [...]
New Club Member Marci Shatzman
We were pleased to have Marci Schatzman become the newest member of our Club. Marci was an online content reporter for three years for Boca Voice, building the local news brand and posting [...]
Recognition for Club Administrator Claudia DuBois, Pia Giannone to Paul Harris #2 and Third Grade Dictionary Project
We were pleased to celebrate and recognize Claudia DuBois for her 10th anniversary as the Club Administrator. Lots of members provided positive reflections on how wonderful Claudia is as a person and what she [...]
Jessica Del Vecchio, Manager, Economic Development, City of Boca Raton
We were pleased to have Jessica Del Vecchio, Manage of Economic Development, City of Boca Raton as our guest speaker last week. We appreciate City Council Member Andrea O’Rourke for getting Jessica to [...]
Craft Talk: ‘Sonny’ Lee Tannenbaum: A Club Rock Star!
Our club was pleased to have President Elect Jeff Tromberg lead a Craft Talk with ‘Sonny’ Lee Tannenbaum. Sonny is an interior decorator, but his love is singing in a rock band called [...]
Lisa Talley on Rotary Youth Peace in Action (YPA) Initiative & Vanessa Havener on Attending the Rotary Zone Leadership Retreat
Lisa Talley Lisa shared that the Youth Peace in Action initiative was featured at the Naples RI Zone 33/34 Conference. Our very own Boca Raton Community High School represented 300+ Internationally based Youth [...]
Michael Walstrom, District 6930 Governor
Our club was pleased to have Roary District 6930 Governor Michael Walstrom as our guest speaker this week. Michael talked about the theme of Obsession – how to do any Rotary project with [...]
Club Assembly: Introduction of New Member Chris Maners
Our club was pleased to induct Chris Maners into the membership of Rotary Club of Boca Raton. Chris is a transfer from the Boca Sunrise Club. Chris is a proud “Hoosier”, born in [...]
Nikki Cabus, Tech Hub South Florida
We were pleased to have Nikki Cabus, Acting Executive Director, as our guest speaker. Tech Hub South Florida is an industry trade non-profit organization that helps facilitate the development of high tech in [...]
Provost Van Williams, Palm Beach State College (PBSC) on the State of PBSC (Boca Raton Campus)
We were pleased to have Provost Van Williams of PBSC Boca Raton Campus as our guest speaker. He gave us an update on PBSC and, in particular, the state of the Boca Raton Campus. He [...]
Brian White, FAU AD on Building an Athletic Program on Positive Life Values
We were pleased to have Brian White, Athletic Director at FAU as our guest speaker. The invocation was truly special from member Ken Davis: “As John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, once [...]
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