- December 14, 2025
The Rotary Club of Port Orange-South Daytona recently donated $7,450 to help protect youth in Florida through the Community Partnership for Children.
The funds raised were from the Rotary Club's annual golf tournament, held this past May. Nick DeSantis, president of the Rotary Club of Port Orange-South Daytona, said they chose to donated the funds to CPC as the organization's goal to help children and promote family stability for the residents of Volusia, Flagler and Putnam counties met their criteria while also being a focus of one of their areas of service.
"The CPC’s mission is to implement and manage a quality child protection system," DeSantis said. "They form partnerships with other children advocate organizations to help assure safety, wellbeing and life permanency of children and the stability of families."
CPC, which was started in 2001, partners with Florida's Department of Children and Families to provide services such as therapeutic help, foster care and mentoring. CPC Chief Executive Officer Mark Jones said the donated money will go toward assisting children with enrichment and esteem-building activities, such as camps, in addition to individual educational needs.
Jones said CPC was notified that they would be this year's recipient of the Rotary Club's donation on January 2017.
"It is an honor to be a partner with the Port Orange South Daytona Rotary," Jones said.
DeSantis said local charities will usually approach the Rotary Club for help with a project. The club asks that any organization provides as much information as possible about their organization and the project they are requesting support for.
CPC previously contacted the Rotary Club Port Orange-Souther Daytona several years ago to help families in low-income financial situations provide Christmas presents to foster children in Volusia, Flagler and Putnam counties. DeSantis said they provided a list of children by first name, age, gender and the child’s wish and need list.
According to DeSantis, every member in the club chooses from the list and fulfills each request. The gifts are distributed anonymously. Jones noted the two organizations have been partnering together for the last five years and that CPC has been a beneficiary of the golf tournament for the past three years.
DeSantis said that when giving back to non-profits, such as CPC, all of the members in the Rotary Club have an opportunity to bring forth an organization they can collectively support through their fundraising proceeds. He said once all the organizations are looked at they then have to select which one they can support.
According to DeSantis, many of the members volunteer and give financial support to areas they can't assist through the club. He said this is what exemplifies what is at the center of the Rotary Club—an individual willing to always give what they can and more.
"I think everybody in our club has many different reasons, close and personal to them, for giving back to organizations such as Community Partnership for Children and many other organizations," DeSantis said. "As a group collectively we can have a larger impact helping certain organizations."
