I am honored to be the President of Rotary Club of Ybor City for the year 2009 – 2010. We are looking forward to another great year in Ybor Rotary.

 

Our Club was founded in 1948 and at that time its membership was made up primarily of businessmen in the Ybor City area of Tampa. It was a multicultural club with members fluent in English, Spanish and Italian, similar to the makeup of the Ybor community. Over the years, the community has changed and the membership has also changed, but there still are a number of persons in the Club with a “latin” background. While we lost the last of our “founder members” several years ago, we are proud to still have several members who joined in the early years of the Club and our now approaching 60 years of membership. We also now have many woman members. We also have younger members joining, who will keep the Club traditions alive for many years to come.

 

Since its founding, the Club has met weekly at the Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City. The Club meets Wednesdays at noon. We have excellent speakers every week, speaking on topics of interest in regard to local and national political matters, business and societal issues, matters of Rotary International, and persons with interesting stories to tell.

 

The Rotary Club of Ybor City, in the spirit of Rotary International, focuses on both local charitable projects and also International projects. It supports the Rotary initiative called “Polio Plus” intending to wipe out Polio in the world (and close to succeeding). Throughout the year the Club has various fundraising events and last year supported local charities with gifts that totaled in excess of $25,000.

 

If you are interested in our Club, please join us for lunch on any Wednesday at the Columbia Restaurant.