Beverly Flanagan is this year’s president of The Rotary Club of Ponte Vedra Beach.
Tell us a little about yourself and your background
I’m a CXS railroad baby. My father was transferred all over the Northeast, so I felt as though I lived everywhere — in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio — but the one place our family called home was the Richmond, Virginia, area. We still have family there and we try to get up there to see them.
But I’m definitely a Floridian now. I have been here since 2005, and I’m never leaving! I love this area.
It seems we meet a lot of people in the same boat. They come here, they love it, and they never want to leave.
I was transferred here by a financial institution. Then, they transferred me to the Daytona Beach market, where I worked for five years. But my family was here in the Jacksonville area, and I finally was able to convince them that they needed me in Jacksonville.
It worked beautifully, and I was able to transition to this market. I have been living in the Beaches area ever since late 2010.
I actually live in Atlantic Beach.
Tell me a little bit about your profession.
I’m in the financial services industry. I’m a relationship strategist, and I have a background in trust and estate planning within a bank framework. I’ve been doing that now for 30 years.
I really love working and the work I do. I get to take care of families. Oftentimes, you feel like you’re part of the family. That makes the work I do pretty interesting.
How long have you been involved with The Rotary Club of Ponte Vedra Beach?
Nine years.
There’s a wonderful lady who lives in Ponte Vedra. Her name is Shelly Morgan; she’s a good friend of mine. She convinced me I needed to go to a meeting with her one day.
Honestly, when I found out the meeting was at 7:30 in the morning and it was down in Marsh Landing — again, I live in Atlantic Beach — I was like: Wow, I don’t know if I can do that!
But, you know, I came to a couple of meetings and loved the people. I’m not kidding when I say we are like a family. The Ponte Vedra Beach Rotary Club is really like my home away from home. That’s what it’s evolved into over the nine years.
And I love it!
What do you like best about the club?
The camaraderie, the friendships and our commitment to service. We do a lot of great things for the community.
We have a great club. This is a special group of 100 people that belong to this club. I just feel really happy to be involved with it and the community service that we do.
What are your goals as the club’s president?
You know, I really want to increase our membership over different categories of people in different professions. I would like to see more representation from community leaders.
We’ve had a lot of great service projects that we’ve been involved in. One of the things that we do every year is our Mineral City Gala. The last one we did, we called it the “M*A*S*H” Bash. That was at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall.
It was a great time. Many years, we get dressed up and put on tuxedos and long gowns, but this year we decided we were going to show up wearing some grunge-wear and it was so much fun!
You know, what is impactful — and this is important — with the work that we’ve done through our gala and our Rotary Club of Ponte Vedra Beach Foundation, we have given away about $1.7 million over many, many years.
We celebrated our 40th anniversary in June 2022.
One of the things we do that I think is special is we clean up a large segment of A1A. We have something called Ecology Day. So, every couple of months, you’ll see probably 15 to 20 Rotarians out on the roadside trying to keep that stretch of A1A clean from about where Poppy’s Restaurant and Fresh Market are down to the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall. That’s our section.
Who are the beneficiaries of your fundraising?
Local charities.
What do you like most about living in this area?
I think being close to the ocean and the easygoing lifestyle that we get to enjoy. I’m not a person that really sits on the beach that much, but I just love that this is an area where people are working out, they’re taking care of themselves, and we have the opportunity to play a lot of sports all year round.
I play a lot of tennis — I’m on three different tennis teams — and learning how to play golf. You don’t get to do that in every part of the country year-round like we do.
How do you like to spend your free time?
I like spending time with my kids. I have two sons who are age 23 and 24. That time with them is really dear, because one lives in Miami and the other one is living in Madison, Wisconsin. So, I don’t get to see them quite as often as I once did. So, whenever we can get together, that’s fun.
I love playing tennis and traveling and finding local restaurants. I’m kind of a foodie. My husband and I love to try all kinds of neat things.
