A philanthropic leader in high society, Wedderburn’s annual InterContinental Miami Make-A-Wish Ball generates more dollars and headlines each consecutive year with its “who’s who” guest list of affluent South Florida VIPs. In 2009, the 15th annual ball raised $1 million to support the foundation’s mission of granting wishes to terminally ill children.

Miami-based socialite and author of Miami Herald column, “Steph Sez,” Stephanie Sayfie-Aagaard keeps more than busy. The wonder woman uses all of her wonderful community ties to raise funds for causes dear to her heart. Topping her list of important charitable causes is The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and The Buoniconti Fund, the world’s largest, most comprehensive spinal cord injury research center.

Ferraro has focused his law practices in the areas of asbestos litigation, products liability, catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death, medical malpractice and family law, and has successfully tried many cases that resulted in multimillion dollar jury verdicts. His firms now handle nearly 50,000 asbestos cases, and are known nationwide for their environmental toxic tort practice. Jim has also earned recognition in Miami’s philanthropic circuit with his donations to charity, including the Make-a-Wish Foundation, Children’s Home Society, United Way of Miami-Dade and The Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis. He was inducted into the Hope Stout Society in 2008 and named one of the Twelve Good Men by the Ronald McDonald House Charities of South Florida in 2010, and is a member of the University of Miami’s Bowman Foster Ashe Society.

For 10 years, Arsht served as Chairman of the board of TotalBank of Miami, which under her leadership, grew to have some $1.4 billion in assets. She sold the bank to Banco Popular Español in 2007 and has since dedicated her life to philanthropy. Here in Miami, Arsht became the first woman to join the Million Dollar Roundtable of United Way of Miami-Dade in 2004, and in 2008, committed more than $6 million to the University of Miami. But nothing tops her pledge of $30 million to Miami’s then-struggling Performing Arts Center, which thereby became known as the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.

The world still recognizes Abess for his incredible gesture of appreciation to his employees when he generously divvied up some $60 million of the $945 acquired when he sold the majority stake of the City National Bank of Florida; but today Abess continues to give back in different ways.