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
Shelley Wellington, Scholarship Coordinator, FAU
Shelley Wellington, Ed.D. Scholarship Coordinator, FAU We were pleased to have Dr. Shelley Wellington, Scholarship Coordinator at FAU as our guest speaker. Dr. Wellington has worked in academia for the past 20 years, [...]
Smartphone Donation
The club welcomes our newest member, Canan ‘Jana’ Ozaktay. She is transferring her membership from the e-Club of Turkey. While her past club enabled her to interact with others from Turkey, Jana wanted [...]
New Member Canan ‘Jana’ Ozaktay
The club welcomes our newest member, Canan ‘Jana’ Ozaktay. She is transferring her membership from the e-Club of Turkey. While her past club enabled her to interact with others from Turkey, Jana wanted [...]
Brian King, FBI on Domestic & International Terrorism
We were pleased to have Brian King of the FBI office in West Palm Beach as our guest speaker. He talked about what the FBI is doing to combat domestic and international terrorism. [...]
Jamie Bond, Place of Hope on Helping Those Controlled by Human Trafficking
We were pleased to have Jamie Bond, Director of Advancement & Development, Place of Hope, as our guest speaker. She talked to the club on the terrible problem of Human Trafficking that takes [...]
Rotary & Wheels from the Heart Donate a Car to Lisa Boatright
Our member Lisa Talley initiated on behalf of our Club and Steve Muschlitz of Wheels from the Heart to donate a car to Lisa Boatright. Here’s the story about Lisa Boatright as told by Lisa [...]
Bernardo Wolfson, RI Foundation Chair on RI’s Four Major Initiatives
We were pleased to have Club member and RI Foundation Chair Bernardo Wolfson give us an update on Rotary International (RI). Bernardo talked about the RI’s Vision that was approved by the RI [...]
Veteran’s Day Recognition and Rotary Toy Drive
We had a focus to identify and honor those members and spouses who have served in the military and are now proud veterans. The following shows those in whom we identified. We [...]
Outstanding People & Leaders (OPAL) Honorees for 2022
The Rotary Club of Boca Raton hosted a reception to announce the honorees for the 2022 OPAL gala to be held on January 22, 2022 at the Boca West Country Club. The 2022 [...]
Jerry Price – Stunt Car Driver and Winner of the World Race 2011: New York to Paris
We were pleased to have Jerry Price as our guest speaker on July 14, 2021. Jerry is a South Florida native who has an impeccable road racing career. One highlight was the World [...]
Rick Zimmer: Why the Champlain Towers South in Surfside Collapsed: Lack of Accountability!
We were pleased to have Club member Rick Zimmer of Zimmer Construction Management as our guest speaker who was joined by his nephew David. Rick shared with the members why the Champlain Towers [...]
Rotary 2021-22 Officers and Directors Installation Banquet
Club President Gary Hildebrand was MC of the Rotary Club of Boca Raton’s annual banquet for the Installation of Officers and Board of Directors for the 2021-22 year. The banquet was held at [...]
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