About Fort Myers Beach Woman’s Club

The Fort Myers Beach Woman’s Club was organized by a group of community women in 1950  to benefit the residents of Fort Myers Beach through philanthropic activities along with a long range venture with the Beach Improvement Association. The Woman’s Club became instrumentally involved with the beautification, gardening and cleaning up of the beach.

In 1950, history shows the woman held their first style show in January of 1951. In October of 1951, the club in conjunction with the Beach Improvement Association planned a new activity for the Beach Teen Club -roller skating.This activity required scraping, sanding and preparing the floor to erect guard rails.

Other activities introduced to the club included dry flower arrangements, bridge lessons, knitting, shell work, ceramics, forming a book club and guest speakers informing about local topics regarding the beach.

In 2019, a group of women decided to place more emphasis on the club as many members were no longer with us and the club had slowly started to die out.  In the beginning, the club focused on gathering members and revamping bylaws and getting the club approved to be a 501C3.  Our goal was to create a place where people could meet other island residents as well as support all the non-profits who were active in the Fort Myers Beach Community.  We wanted to resurrect the historic schoolhouse which is our clubhouse.  This school house was the first official schoolhouse on the beach and our goal was to create a beautiful venue for our residents to rent for special occasions.  The Clubhouse was also a place for our local non-profits to hold their events.

In 2019, We tripled our membership  and obtained our non-profit charter. We created the Alliance, a gathering of all non-profits so that each could have representation and in our small community could find ways to work together to be successful.

The​ mission of the Woman’s Club is to support educational and recreational activities for non-profit, charitable and community organizations operating with the greater Fort Myers Beach community.

Today, the Woman’s Club has monthly programs for its members, hosts numerous fundraisers and the land is available for rental for private parties and events.

And after Hurricane Ian, our Club partnered with others and raised over $800,000 to help those who needed financial help after losing everything during the storm.

The Historic Clubhouse – Gone But Not Forgotten

The historic Woman’s Clubhouse was the island’s first school house, a teenager’s dance hall and a community meeting place. Built in 1938 as the second beach school house, it ran as a school until 1948 until it no longer could house all the island children.  The historic building serves as a remembrance to the Estero island architecture. Throughout the past 82 years, it has weathered many storms, but sadly, we lost this treasure on September 28th, 2022 to Hurricane Ian.

Currently, the Woman’s Club land is available to rent to the residents and guests of Fort Myers Beach for social and non-profit events.