Scott Lawlor (far right) with (l-r) his wife, Elena, and their children, Marian, Bobby, Kaylie, Cassie, Nina and Scottie. The kids have all volunteered at Boca Helping Hands. Photo provided
By Hannah Spence
“In my view of the world, folks who are able to help ought to do all they can to help folks who need the help,” said Scott Lawlor, who, along with his family, has been volunteering with Boca Helping Hands for about eight years after moving to Florida from Connecticut.
The east Boca Raton resident has more than 35 years of experience on subject matters including real estate acquisitions, financing and asset management. Despite being the busy founder and chief executive officer of Waypoint Residential, which develops multi-family properties in the Sunbelt, Lawlor makes it a priority to help others who are less fortunate than himself.
“Volunteering is just something my family has always done,” said Lawlor, 59. “Shortly after I got down here, I found Boca Helping Hands. I thought it was a terrific organization with a lot of different ways we could get involved and help.”
Boca Helping Hands, founded in 1998, provides a number of basic services — as well as monetary assistance — to help people achieve financial independence.
Lawlor assists the nonprofit with actions such as bringing food to people who are homebound or can’t afford groceries, and providing mentoring for the job training program, which helps young people understand business and build their careers.
Lawlor also aids Boca Helping Hands through his company.
“On one Friday afternoon a month, the group goes over and helps unpack things and does stuff around the warehouse,” said Lawlor. “And once a year, we have a charity event — it’s like a bowling event to raise money.”
Lawlor’s compassion and dedication to helping others are things the executive director of Boca Helping Hands, Greg Hazle, admires.
“Although we frequently have corporate groups that volunteer like his team does, it is very unusual for us to have the CEO personally involved even more often as a volunteer as the employees are,” said Hazle. “That’s one of the remarkable aspects of Scott’s experience.”
Lawlor and his wife, Elena, have six children: Cassie, 24; Nina, 22; Kaylie, 21; Marian, 20; Scottie, 18; and Bobby, 17.
“My kids go and help out at the facility when they are home on break and such. In addition to the things we do regularly as a family, they do similar stuff around the warehouse like people at my company do,” said Lawlor.
“It seems to me like it is important for Scott to be passing along to his kids whatever lesson he learned that made him such a giving person,” Hazle said when discussing the volunteer work in which Lawlor’s sons and daughters participate. “And the kids seem like they are eating it up. Sometimes you see that kids have been dragged in to do volunteering reluctantly, but where his kids show up, they are fully engaged and seem to be enjoying not only the work but enjoying each other.”
Although Lawlor is happy to volunteer, he laments the negative realties of the situation.
“We do the best we can, but I work, my kids go to school,” Lawlor said. “The sad thing is, whatever the amount of work we do, there’s a whole lot more people that need help.
It’s not like you do the food drop-off and that takes care of all of Boca Raton. Unfortunately, it takes care of a small fraction of the needs of the whole community. That’s just not enough.”
Boca Helping Hands (bocahelpinghands.org/about) is always looking for volunteers and Lawlor encourages people to get involved.
“At least try it,” he said. “You won’t be disappointed and almost certainly will want to get more involved.”
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