APRIL UPDATE

It’s officially Spring and the Chamber has so much exciting news and events to share with you! We kicked April off by participating in the Miami Beach Gay Pride Parade, which included a float sponsored by R House Drag Brunch, City National Bank and Regis HR. We are excited to be a champion of this event for a few years now and love to see how it’s grown. This year, Actress Gabrielle Union and her family joined our float a surprise guest and the pep-rally “Gay Spirit” theme was a hit with drag performers who dressed up as cheerleaders. Over 50 guests joined our float and we want to thank our sponsors and members who attended and it’s exciting to see the business community come together to celebrate the LGBTQ community.

Last week we hosted our Elayne Weisburd Excellence in Education Awards and Wendy Unger’s Retirement Celebration at Jungle Island. Presented by FPL, we honored nine of Miami Beach’s most innovative educations at Jungle Island at the event attended by 100 members and community members. At this annual event, the Chamber will recognize the very best teachers from Miami Beach’s public schools and will announce the teachers of the year. The Excellence in Education Award Luncheon was created and founded in honor of Elayne Weisburd’s many years of dedicated service to improving education. Weisburd was the first women to serve on the City of Miami Beach Commission as well as Chair Person for the Chamber’s education committee for 12 years. The mission for this event is to identify outstanding educators within the Miami Beach community who exhibits innovative and creative teaching methods in make learning fun as well as to maximize the quality of education and expand opportunities for its children. At this year’s event, we also honored our Membership Director Wendy Unger who retired from the Chamber after 40 years of service. Throughout the years, she handled membership, marketing and volunteers, among many other things. She was best known for helping everyone and being a true “connector.”

I want to encourage you all to attend this year’s 97th Annual Gala presented by City National Bank on June 1, 2019 at the Loews Miami Beach. This the largest business networking event in Miami Beach and attended by stakeholders, community members and professionals from every type of industry. At the black tie optional fete, we will recognize the contributions of five distinguished pillars of the community, which include Jorge Gonzalez (City National Bank), The Little Lighthouse Foundation, Lisa Lutoff-Perlo (Celebrity Cruises), Congresswomen Illeana Ros-Lehtinen and our very own immediate past chair Michael S. Goldberg. This year’s gala will bring to life Dr. Seuss’ Oh, The Thinks You Can Think. The story inspires children to dream big and inspire them to be creative and imaginative, which is the mission of the Miami Beach Chamber Education Foundation. We are also accepting donation items for our silent and live auction, we encourage you to donate a certificate, item or service to this high profile event. The black tie affair is chaired by Jordan Kramer (COMPASS) and Andrea Tovar (Corcoran & Johnston), among other committee members, and I’d like to thank them for their leadership. (For more information on the honorees and event, please read the first page story on our gala).

Lastly, I want to recognize on behalf of the board of governors the passing of Seymour Gelber, or Sy as many knew him as, wo served three terms as Miami Beach mayor. That came after his service to the nation as an army sergeant and a long career as a judge in the Miami-Dade court system. Sy made a mark in South Florida, first as a juvenile judge before eventually becoming mayor. He ended up revamping the county’s juvenile court system.

If you want to learn more about the Chamber, attend our Gala and/or donate to the auction, please contact us at 305-674-1300 Ext. 3100.

Best,

Robin Jacobs


Connect To Your Customers & Grow Your Business

Click Here