The 2026 Give Back Breakfast recipients with Bess the Book Bus serves nine Hillsborough County Schools. “Children enter the bus and pick out their very own new free book,\u201d said Michelle Box. \u201cBess’s team coordinates with school social workers. These children might not have ever had a book of their own. Studies that children with as few as 20 books in their homes stay in school 3.5 years longer.\u201d [\u00a0Photos SUBMITTED\u00a0]<\/p>\n
The annual Give Back Breakfast hosted by the Rotary Club of New Tampa \u2014 part face-to-face nonprofit networking, part donation celebration \u2014 hosted local and global nonprofits on June 12 at Tampa Palms Golf and Country Club, giving away $87,058 from its foundation\u2019s annual fund.<\/p>\n
More than 20 nonprofit organizations received funds from the Rotary Club of New Tampa, which has helped serve the area and beyond for just over three decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look forward to this celebration every year, not just for the grants that help locally and throughout the world\u2026it\u2019s also about the hundreds of service hours we dedicate to these nonprofits,\u201d said Paul Suppicich, 2025-26 club president, in a statement. He cited the club\u2019s recent donation to the Quail Hollow Elementary Butterfly Garden, in cooperation with AdventHealth Wesley Chapel and the school\u2019s Girl Scout troop, that memorialized the school custodian and garden caretaker, as part of its local outreach.<\/p>\n
Ghadir Kassab, executive director of Radiant Hands, a first-time attendee, is greeted by Ano Kashumba, executive director of Pioneer Medical Foundation, which provides medical care and screening for Radiant Hands refugee widows, women and children. [\u00a0Photos SUBMITTED\u00a0]<\/p>\n
The Rotary Club of New Tampa and its foundation have donated more than $1.6 million to nonprofits in the community and to Rotary projects around the world since the club\u2019s founding in 1995. Like Rotary International, its causes promote peace, fighting disease, providing clean water\/sanitation\/hygiene, improving health for mothers and children, supporting education, growing local economies, and protecting the environment, according to club member Karen Frashier.<\/p>\n
The annual breakfast brings together dozens of nonprofit leaders in the community, with the idea that they can network and expand their reach.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery year, a nonprofit leader tells us they began a relationship with another nonprofit during this celebration,\u201d Suppicich said. \u201cEach nonprofit has a few minutes to explain what it does and how it plans to use the donation. That creates ideas. These community leaders don\u2019t often have the chance to meet like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The donations this year range from helping a book bus to an orphanage in Zimbabwe to Texas flood relief and local charities like the YMCA, Meals on Wheels and Feeding Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n
Connie Bladon, AdventHealth Wesley Chapel & Rotary member Ano Kashumba and Stephanie Wertovitch, development officer at Feeding Tampa Bay. [\u00a0Photos SUBMITTED\u00a0]<\/p>\n
The complete list of Rotary Club of New Tampa nonprofit partners receiving donations this year: <\/p>\n
\u2022 AdventHealth Community Outreach<\/p>\n
\u2022 AdventHealth Foundation Smiles Project-\u2105 Venice Nokomis Rotary Foundation<\/p>\n
\u2022 Bess the Book Bus<\/p>\n
\u2022 Feeding Tampa Bay<\/p>\n
\u2022 Fisher House Foundation<\/p>\n
\u2022 Healing America Foundation<\/p>\n
\u2022 Hillsborough Literacy Council<\/p>\n
\u2022 IRG Islamic Resource Group<\/p>\n
\u2022 Makumbi Orphanage-\u2105 Rotary Club of Harara Central, Zimbabwe<\/p>\n
\u2022 Meals on Wheels of Tampa<\/p>\n
\u2022 OASIS Network of New Tampa<\/p>\n
\u2022 Operation Heart F.E.L.T.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Osher Lifelong Learning Institute<\/p>\n
\u2022 Pioneer Medical Foundation<\/p>\n
\u2022 Radiant Hands Inc.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Rotary District 6890-Texas Flood Relief<\/p>\n
\u2022 Rotary Foundation Annual Fund SHARE<\/p>\n
\u2022 Rotary Club of New Tampa High School Interact Clubs<\/p>\n
\u2022 Rotary Club of New Tampa Holiday Families<\/p>\n
\u2022 Rotary Club of New Tampa Signature Project<\/p>\n
\u2022 Rotary Club of New Tampa Youth Services<\/p>\n
\u2022 Rotary\u2019s Camp Florida<\/p>\n
\u2022 Seminar for Tomorrow\u2019s Leaders (S4TL)<\/p>\n
\u2022 Tampa Metropolitan Area YMCA (New Tampa Family Location)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 Give Back Breakfast recipients with Bess the Book Bus serves nine Hillsborough County Schools. “Children enter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-317011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}