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
Professor Geoffrey Wetherell on Having Productive Conversations in Contentious Times
We were pleased to have Professor Geoffrey Wetherell from the Dept. of Psychology at FAU as our guest speaker on June 30, 2021. Professor Wetherell is the husband of our member Lisa Talley. [...]
Club Assembly and Bob Buruchian – Rotarian of the Year Award
This week was enjoyed as a Club Assembly at the Pavilion Restaurant. At the start of the meeting, Club President Gary Hildebrand, honored Bob Buruchian with the Rotarian of the Year Award. This [...]
Mayor Scott Singer – Update and Plans for Boca Raton
We were pleased to have Mayor Scott Singer speak to our Club at Sugar Sand Park. It was great to be meeting again in person. Here are some notes from Scott’s talk: Boca [...]
Noelle Dayton, Certified Holistic Health Coach (CHHC)
We were delighted to have Noelle Dayton, a Certified Holistic Health Coach (CHHC) as our guest speaker last week. Noelle has been helping people understand their amazing ability to heal naturally and holistically for [...]
Dr. Shelley Plumb on Challenging Each of Us to Live Beyond our Comfort Zone
We were delighted to have Dr. Shelley Plumb as our guest speaker last week. Dr. Plumb recently wrote and published a book called To Break or Bounce: Finding Balance, Stability, and Resilience in Our [...]
Wendy Santory Link, Supervisor of Elections for Palm Beach County
We were pleased to have Wendy Santory Link, Supervisor of Elections for Palm Beach Country as out guest speaker. She leads an award winning program of excellence for the state and nation. [...]
Rotary Club of Boca Raton & Palm Beach State College Award Scholarships in Marine Science Technology, Automotive Mechanics and HVAC Technology Trades Program
Since 1957, the Rotary Club of Boca Raton has been underwriting college scholarships for local deserving students through the Club’s “Changing Lives and Building Futures” scholarship program. This is all possible due [...]
Vytas Reid, CBS Channel 12 Chief Meteorologist
We were delighted to have Vytas Reid be our guest speaker this week. Vytas is the new Emmy award-winning Chief Meteorologist for the award-winning CBS 12 News at 5, 5:30, and 11 pm [...]
Sarah Lucas, New World Angels re: Early-Stage Financing of Entrepreneurial Startups
We were delighted to have Sarah Lucas, COO of New World Angels, as our guest speaker this week. Sarah is the Chief Operating Officer of New Word Angels, a network of accredited private investors [...]
Rotary Club of Boca Raton First (Outdoor) In-Person Meeting in Over a Year!
The Rotary Club of Boca Raton was finally able to meet in person for the first time in over a year. We met outdoors at the Ravfina Greek Tavern and Grill for [...]
Announcement of Officers and Directors for 2021-22
The Rotary Club of Boca Raton met outdoors again at the Rafina Greek Tavern and Grill for a Club Assembly. During this meeting, the slate of Officers for 2021-22 was presented to [...]
Share Your Rotary Story
Every member has a story. What's yours?
#Rotary Story