Frank Derfler, with the Upper Keys Rotary Club, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about the 30th annual Gigantic Nautical Market.
The Gigantic Nautical Market will be held on February 22 and 23.
Derfler said, “The cool thing is that this coming weekend is the Miami Boat Show. Well, we get the advantage of having many, many vendors who come to the Miami Boat Show, who want to stay over and come down to the Keys the next weekend. So it’s the 22nd and 23rd and it’s bigger and better than ever, more than 350 vendors.”
The money from the event will provide scholarship for Keys’ students.
Derfler said, “That’s about $200,000 a year that goes to scholarships, not just for graduating students, but the unique thing is, we follow those students all the way through, and it’s not just academic degrees, it’s also technical degrees. Right now, we have four firefighters who are going for their medic certification, who we are paying for and these are Islamorada firefighters. So it is a real benefit to the community. At the same time, it’s a really good time. I should have also mentioned 18 food trucks. You can’t possibly eat your way around the park in two days.”
A map of the entire event can be found on the Rotary website.
Derlfer said, “If you put rotarymarket.info into your phone, you’ll come up with an interactive map where you can search by the product type, or if you happen to know the vendor name, you can search by vendor name. We’ve got an online searchable database for you. We’ve got information booths. We’ve got over 125 students volunteering, and they’re all going to have information, so this is quite an event. What we what we recommend is for people to take the shuttle bus from Coral Shores High School, because the village of Islamorada has planted some new trees and things along the median, and it’s gotten a little tighter parking in that area, but if you go to the high school, take the shuttle bus, we’ve got students who are in college, in university right now, and they’re going to ride the bus and they’re going to tell you about the event, and they’re going to tell you about themselves. It’s a very interesting little experience. So there are significant advantages to riding that bus from Coral Shores High School bus ramp.”
A free photo booth will be next to the bar at the back of the park as well.
Derfler said, “This is fun. This is actually a local outfit that has this photo booth set up. You can act crazy. It’s just like an old time photo booth, only this time it’s free and you can act crazy, and it’ll email you your photos.”
This is such a critical fundraiser for the Rotary Club.
Derfler said, “Like almost all the Rotary Clubs in the Keys, we make a very significant contribution to Take Stock in Children. Rotary members are really strong supporters of Take Stock in Children. Just yesterday, I was feeling really good, and I was bragging to one of my friends in Rotary about how, yeah, I’m almost at the end of my second student who I’ve sponsored, and he said to me, oh, well, I’ve done three.”
A donation is requested at the gate.
Derfler said, “We’re deploying 16 portable card readers throughout the park. We do ask, by the way, for a $5 donation at the entry gate for adults. This also goes into our scholarship fund, and this is our main fundraising opportunity. And as I say, about $200,000 a year benefits Keys’ students and that’s not just graduating students, but those are students and all kinds of academic and technical schools. So it’s a really neat thing that we do, and we appreciate the help of everyone.”
The event is held at Founders Park.
Derlfer said, “We apologize to all the locals. Yes, US 1 will be pretty much at a very slow crawl on Saturday morning and Sunday morning the 22nd and 23rd. Plan ahead and please, please, please, if you’re coming from Marathon or Key West and you need to make an airplane, go get a hotel room. It’s going to be tough. We get that complaint every year. Oh my gosh, I missed the airplane. Well, I’m sorry, but 22nd 23rd, US 1 is going to be slow, but maybe there’s a scholarship in it for your kid or somebody near you.”
For more information, click here: https://rotarynauticalmarket.com/