Ronald MacDonald House CSR activities are particularly well suited for groups
meeting in Florida, because the houses are
located in essentially every major meeting
destination in the state, including Orlando,
Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Tampa,
St. Petersburg and Fort Myers.
Habitat for Humanity is also a charity
with numerous CSR/volunteering opportunities in Florida, because it has the entire
state essentially saturated with locations—
ranging from Pensacola to Tallahassee
to Jacksonville to Orlando to Tampa/St.
Petersburg to West Palm Beach to Fort Lauderdale to Miami to Key West and many
smaller cities in between.
Another entity with good CSR activities
for groups that Schreiner and other planners
recommend in Florida is Clean the World, a
huge worldwide charity that was started in
Orlando just about six years ago.
Clean the World, which now recycles
soaps and shampoos from almost 500,000
hotel rooms around the globe, started with a
partnership with the former Peabody Hotel
in Orlando, and now has partnerships with
more than 4,000 hotels around the world
and recycling centers in Orlando, Las Vegas,
Hong Kong and Singapore. The activities of
Clean the World are purely charitable—the
organization distributes soaps and personal
hygiene kits to impoverished people in 99
countries worldwide.
Schreiner says Clean the World is good
for groups because they can either work off
site—volunteering at recycling centers—or
perform activities such as assembling personal hygiene kits in a hotel ballroom. ■
cities of Florida, with venders offering day trips from Fort Lauderdale,
Fort Myers, Naples and other coastal cities. Groups will see dolphins
and sea birds at the beginning of the journey and alligators and other
swamp inhabitants in the middle of the tour. Venues in the center of
the Florida Peninsula (only about an hour van ride from either coast)
offer experiences ranging from organized hikes to canoe trips to jaunts
on huge swamp buggies that tour game preserves on Native Ameri-can-owned lands. The Everglades’ proximity to cities on both coasts
make it possible to have a“swamp tour” and lunch and be back in time
for a beachfront dinner party on the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico.
Historic St. Augustine and Castillo de San
Marcos—Jacksonville area
Just a half-hour drive south of North Florida’s largest city is St. Augustine, the
oldest continuously inhabited U.S. city—founded in 1565. Also there is the
oldest masonry fortress in the continental U.S., built in 1672, when Florida
was a prized part of the Spanish Empire. Both the fort and the well-preserved
16th-century village, with its narrow streets and Spanish colonial history
re-enactments, are coveted day trips from Jacksonville, according to North
Florida meeting professionals.
“In Florida we don’t have a lot of history compared to some other states,
but the town of St. Augustine is such a unique, hidden gem,” says Sarah
Gabel, CMP (MPI Greater Orlando Area Chapter), director of operations for
Regal Meetings and Events. “They have amazing restaurants and wine bars
near the very historic icons like the old Spanish Fort. It makes a really great
trip for any group meeting in Jacksonville, and St. Augustine offers a very dis-
tinct sense-of-place experience in a part of Florida that is rich with history.”
Susan Wiley, CMP, convention services manager at the Hyatt Regency
Jacksonville and president of the MPI North Florida Chapter, says one tour
guide vendor offers a creative approach to showing groups the historic city.
“You leave your hotel on a bus or van to St. Augustine, and when you get
there you pick up a ‘hitchhiker,’” she says. “Well, the ‘hitchhiker’ actually turns
out to be your tour guide, who shows you all the great experiences to be
found there.”
