On Thursday, February 9, the Greater Miami Shores Chamber of Commerce will hold its Annual Dinner.  This festive and well attended event is usually the pinnacle of the Chamber’s year and programming.  The evening begins with our Annual Meeting at 5:30 p.m., which is open to all members and provides you with an opportunity to ask questions of Chamber leadership and hear about plans for 2017.

At 6:30 p.m., attendees will gather for complimentary hors d’ ouevres and a cash bar. Dinner is served at 7:30 p.m.  All events are being held at the Miami Shores Country Club, 10000 Biscayne Boulevard in Miami Shores.  Tickets are $100 and a table of eight is $750.

Each year at our Annual Dinner we honor the “Citizen of the Year”.  This year we selected two community treasures who unfortunately left us in 2016, Susan Dombrowsky and Jerry Estep.  

The late Jerry Estep served as Recreation Director for Miami Shores Village from 2000 until his untimely death this past June.  Prior to that Jerry oversaw the Recreation and Parks Department for the city of Hollywood for seven years and held a similar position for nine years in Gulfport, Mississippi.  He was born in Roswell, New Mexico in 1953, raised in Gulfport, and was a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi.  An avid fisherman, he and his wife, Miami Shores Village Clerk Barbara Estep, were frequent visitors to the Florida Keys.  He served as a board member for the Chamber of Commerce as well as being a member of the Green Day Committee.

Susan Clifford Dombrowsky, M.D., was born on October 14, 1943 to William Clifford, M.D. and Kathryn Clifford who moved their family to Miami Shores in the 1960’s.  

Susan, the eldest of eight children, followed her father’s footsteps into medicine.  She went to University of Miami Medical School, at a time when women did not. She became the doctor for generations of families she treated from her Miami Shores practice.  All of her patients would agree (including the ones she stitched up in her kitchen) that she was a gifted diagnostician and ultimately a true healer.

To Susan, family and education were paramount.  Through her hard work, she ensured that she was able to travel the world with her family—never fancy, but always fun with an educational purpose.  Susan and her husband Alan also made sure that every evening they shared supper together—interrupted only for educational purposes as she sent one of the boys to fetch the Encyclopedia Britannica or Oxford Unabridged Dictionary.

Susan also believed that one must also give back to the community.  In addition to serving her generations of patients, Susan was also an active participant in a number of national and local charities too numerous to list.  Susan also sat on the Barry University Board of Trustees and later on the Doctors Charter School Board. Notably, Susan was Miami Shores Chamber of Commerce President in 1989, a time when she had a thriving medical practice, and three school age sons.  Those who knew Susan would agree that she possessed a work ethic, energy, and dedication paralleled by few.  Her legacy will love on through her family, her patients, and anyone who selflessly gives back to their community.  She passed away on July 12, 2016.    

We hope that you will come out and help us honor the families of these two great Shores legends on February 9!