History of the Space Center Endowment Rotary Foundation (SCREF)
History
John Watson (Club President 1989-1990) and the Board unanimously supported the idea of a local foundation and resolved to establish the Space Center Rotary Club Endowment Foundation. John asked Billy Smith to obtain a charter from the Texas Secretary of State for a non-profit corporation and David Hamblin was asked to obtain approval from the Internal Revenue Service so that the Foundation was classified as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. After considerable research and discussions with members of other Rotary clubs who had long-established foundations, both were accomplished. The corporate charter was issued on February 15, 1991 and 501(c)(3) status was granted on April 9, 1993. The purposes for which the Foundation is organized are stated in Article I of the bylaws as follows:
Intent of Founders
Not desiring to diminish the importance of or to detract from the work of The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International or to interfere with or compete for support, through its members, of Space Center Rotary Club, and, while acknowledging the worthiness of the Club's attaining the highest possible level of member participation in financially supporting The Rotary Foundation through Paul Harris Fellowships, Paul Harris Sustaining Members, and Benefactors, the founders of The Space Center Rotary Club Endowment Foundation believe that there will be those among its members, both present and future, as well as relatives and friends of members, who, desiring to foster and promote the ideals of Rotary, wish to do so within the local community and through the control, management, and administration of members of Space Center Rotary Club.
Therefore, this Foundation has come into existence and shall strive to nurture, encourage, and advance the development of effective programs, activities, undertakings, and projects of a philanthropic, charitable, educational, humanitarian, and eleemosynary nature. To achieve this intent, the founders believe that it will be important and desirable for the Trustees of the Foundation to resist the temptations to distribute all available funds, but, at least in the early years, to concentrate on the building of a sizable trust corpus, accumulating as much of the income as possible and adding it to the principal until the Foundation has the means and resources to offer financial assistance to worthy projects of a far greater dimension than it would otherwise be able to consider.
Our Mission
Our mission is to build a foundation upon and with which the Rotary Club of Space Center, Houston, Texas will be financially enabled to meet and satisfy many of the needs of the Clear Lake Community.
Floyd D. Boze Fellows
The SCRCEF has established a process to recognize each $1000 given to the Foundation. It is patterned after the Rotary International Foundation‘s Paul Harris Fellow recognition program The program is termed the Floyd Boze Fellow recognition program and is named after long time member of the SCRC and a former District 589 Governor, Floyd D. Boze. The Program consists of a certificate, a label pin, and a neck medallion.
The initial Boze Fellow pin (75) was a 5/8 inch label pin shaped like a Rotary International wheel with two concentric circles within the wheel. The outer band contains the words, Floyd D. Boze Fellow and the inner circle contains continents of the western hemisphere. An astronaut in space gear is shown on the lower left circumference of the wheel. It contains a ruby insert in the black background signifying that it (only 73 pins have flown in space) was flown on the United States Space Shuttle Atlantis, STS-86, September 25 through October 6, 1997.
The first fellowship was given to Floyd D. Boze’s wife, Nancy Boze. Ninety one Floyd Boze Fellowships have been given since SCRCEF was formed (as of Rotary Year 2011-12).