By Mary Thurwachter
With the Palm Beach International Film Festival fast approaching, Yvonne Boice looks forward to doing some serious movie-watching. She is particularly interested in seeing Violins in Wartime, with the performance of legendary violinist Ida Haendel.
The film — to be shown at Mizner Park Cultural Arts Center at 4 p.m. on April 15 — Boice said, “will be a wonderful opportunity to experience the partnership between film and music.”
Boice, a Boca Raton philanthropist who owns Fugazy International Travel and the Shoppes at Village Pointe, has been with the PBIFF since its inception 17 years ago, and her position as chairwoman is a labor of love. It’s one of many volunteer positions she holds.
Yvonne Boice, who owns a travel business and a shopping
center in Boca Raton, is chairwoman of the Palm Beach International
Film Festival. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
She is serving as a board member on the trust of the National Endowment of the Humanities, board of governors member at Northwood University and is a foundation board member at Palm Beach State College.
Recently, she chaired the YMCA’s Prayer Breakfast, where more than 500 people attended the inspirational event designed to engage and excite the community while raising funds for the YMCA’s financial assistance programs.
Volunteering, she said, was something her family insisted on.
“We were all required to give back,” said Boice. She remembers raising money for the football team when she was a cheerleader in high school in New Jersey.
“I didn’t wait for people to come to me (with donations),” she said. “I went and asked them and I was determined to collect more than anyone else — and I did.”
Boice has an advanced certificate in interior design and a bachelor of science in marketing from New York University.
Traveling has always been her passion, she said, and geography her favorite subject. After college, she took her first solo trip to London, Paris, Rome and Spain.
“It was in the ’60s and a woman traveling alone was a rarity,” she said. “I made live-long friends.”
Having traveled to all seven continents and 150 countries, Boice will tell you her favorite destination is South Africa, where she has been eight times. Next on her itinerary are St. Kitts and Mozambique.
But she enjoys her time at home, too, with her second husband, World Trade Center Palm Beach founder Al Zucaro. She has one daughter, Lauren, an attorney who lives in Boston with her husband, Randall Smith, an astrophysicist.
“Boca is a big, small town where you still have the feeling of a close-knit community,” she said.
While she’s enjoys her work, she has a two wishes few people know.
“I would love to be a stand-up comic and once aspired to be a Rockette at Radio City Music Hall,” Boice said. Ú
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