Rotary Club honors Drewa

The Rotary Club of South Jacksonville awarded its annual Frank Sherman Award to longtime Jacksonville healthcare executive and Rotarian, Marcus Drewa.

The award was established to honor Frank Sherman who founded the Southside Rotary Club in 1955. Sherman was a pioneering businessman who started American Bank in his south bank grocery store and who was instrumental in creating both Memorial Hospital and Friendship Fountain. Annual award winners are Rotarians in the greater Jacksonville area who have demonstrated service to Rotary, business or profession and to the community at large. Past recipients have included Walter Bussells, I. M. Sulzbacher and Ashley Verlander. Drewa has clearly demonstrated the “Service Above Self” approach to his life that the Frank Sherman Award was established to recognize. This quiet man has truly had a major impact on the Jacksonville Community.

Drewa seems to be cut from the same cloth as the award’s namesake.  During the past 46 years, Drewa has made a meaningful impact on the city’s healthcare community.

In 1966, a young Drewa with his Masters degree in Hospital Administration was appointed administrator of the then 65 year-old Brewster Hospital. Drewa quickly transformed this modest hospital into the Methodist Medical Center.  He created a successful transplant program and introduced Florida’s first hospice. In 1988, Methodist Medical Center became a key part of Shands and Drewa continued his CEO role for eight more years before retiring. During those years and since retirement, Drewa has played an important role in an extensive array of community and charitable projects and groups ranging from Rotary to Children’s Home Society. Possibly most notable in those activities is the tremendous role he has played in the Ronald McDonald House providing leadership as well as providing and driving financial support.

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