Community Impact

Building America One Community At a Time®

At Rosen Hotels & Resorts, hospitality extends far beyond our hotels. What began as Harris Rosen’s commitment to giving back has grown into a lasting mission to create opportunities, strengthen communities and help people reach their full potential.

Through educational opportunities, community partnerships and pathways for positive change, Rosen’s legacy continues to transform lives and inspire futures. Our community initiatives are more than programs – they are an ongoing commitment to building brighter futures for the communities we call home.

Corporate Giving

Rosen Hotels & Resorts supports organizations that impact our associates and enhance the quality of life in the Central Florida area. Our financial and volunteer resources are focused on the areas of education, wellness, animal welfare, and cultural diversity. All charitable requests, whether financial or in-kind, must be submitted through our website by completing the online Community Giving Form.  

Harris Rosen Foundation

Groups that benefit from the Harris Rosen Foundation are significant to Harris Rosen, founder of Rosen Hotels & Resorts. Aside from his love for the hospitality business, Mr. Rosen had a passion for giving back. Through the years the foundation has focused on education, the communities of Tangelo Park and Parramore in Orlando, and the people of Haiti. Now that passion is growing and extending to newer communities and groups in need.

Adam Michael Rosen Foundation, Inc.

On November 23, 2018, the Rosen Hotels & Resorts and members of the Rosen family announced with heavy hearts the passing of Adam Michael Rosen, 26. Adam, Harris Rosen’s third child of four, gifted us an unimaginable legacy. The Adam Michael Rosen Foundation, Inc. was created by the Rosen Family to honor the life and fight Adam gave in his battle against cancer by aiding others in their fight. To help others fighting cancer has become its mission. We want you to know that Adam is fighting in your corner with you.

Tangelo Park Program

The community of Tangelo Park is located approximately one-quarter mile southeast of Orlando’s International Drive tourist area. From the late 1980s through the early 1990s, Tangelo Park characterized a typical urban community with low socioeconomic demographic problems: overt drug problems, poor school attendance, declining test scores and increasing high school dropout rates.  

Second Multimillion-Dollar Community Education Initiative Launched in Parramore

In the neighborhood of Parramore west of downtown Orlando, Mr. Rosen launched a second iteration of his highly successful community education initiative program. This program mirrors the successful one launched in Tangelo Park. Young children in the neighborhood receive free preschool education and care. Teachers’ salaries will be paid for by the Harris Rosen Foundation. Twenty-four preschool classrooms designed to accommodate up to 12 children each, for a total of 288 children, will welcome two-, three-, and four-year-old children.  

The Rosen Scholarship Foundation

The Rosen Scholarship Foundation was created to fund the Tangelo Park and Parramore Scholarship Programs, the UCF Hospitality School Scholarship Program, and Rosen Hotels & Resorts’ Dependent Scholarship Program.

Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida

With Orlando fast becoming the most visited tourist location in the world, Harris Rosen believed it would only be fitting for the city to have the best hospitality program available in the country. He donated $10 million to establish the Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida, which was built right next to Rosen Shingle Creek® hotel. The gift is the largest ever pledged to or received by the UCF Foundation. Under current Florida law, gifts of this size qualify for dollar-for-dollar state matching, which translates into $20 million for a facility and faculty providing students with a world-class education equal to the Orlando hospitality industry itself.  

Bethune-Cookman College Bronze Statue Project

Harris Rosen served as the honorary co-chair of the Bethune-Cookman College Statue Project with the late Dr. Dorothy Height, President Emeriti of the National Council of Negro Women. The purpose of this initiative was to have a statue sculpted of America’s beloved Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune including fountains and landscaping on the campus of Bethune-Cookman College, which Dr. Bethune founded in 1904. The fundraiser was a huge success. In January 2005, the statue was unveiled on the Bethune-Cookman College campus.

Rosen Aquatic and Fitness Center

Like all great stories, the one behind the Rosen Aquatic & Fitness Center has drama, tragedy, and a heroic happy ending. The competitive swimming center almost completely shut down taking away a valuable local training spot for special Olympians and other famous swimmers as well as local swimmers, such as Harris Rosen. The day in 1992 when Mr. Rosen arrived to find its doors locked and a team of special Olympians displaced outdoors changed the course of the center’s history. That chance moment in which the special Olympians asked if they had done something wrong to close the place sparked a campaign to save the center led by Mr. Rosen.  

Haiti Relief-Rebuild-Sustain Program

For more than a decade, the Harris Rosen Foundation has helped Haitian brothers and sisters living in Haiti attain a level of self-sufficiency. Since the 1990s, school and medical supplies have been collected and delivered directly to hospitals, schools, and orphanages needing support, ensuring all supplies go directly to those most in need. In 2010, just after the devastating earthquake, the Foundation met with local leaders and the Haiti Task Force to assess the needs of Haitians and devise a plan of action to help.  

Jack & Lee Rosen Southwest Orlando Campus and the Rosen JCC

Since the Harris Rosen Foundation purchased the property on which the Jewish Community Center owns and operates the Jack & Lee Rosen Southwest Orlando Campus, the campus has seen a boom in growth and improvement. The Rosen Campus opened in 2009, featuring new classrooms, meeting space, a fitness center, and a gymnasium. In 2015, the Rosen Campus was incorporated as an independent organization and named itself the Jack & Lee Rosen Jewish Community Center. Further expansions that year included additional classrooms, a 500-seat auditorium and theater, a new fitness area, a dedicated babysitting room, and music practice rooms. “Education and recreation are vital to the center’s role in the community.”  

Green Meetings & Lodging

In 2008, Rosen Hotels & Resorts launched Rosen Green Meetings, an environment-friendly meetings initiative designed to assist meeting planners in reducing burdens to Florida’s natural resources typically associated with large meetings and conventions, including reducing excess paper hand-outs and forms. On the Rosen Green Meetings website (www.rosengreenmeetings.com), planners will find tips for holding greener meetings and links to additional green meeting organizations. Planners will also learn in greater detail how Rosen Hotels & Resorts helps the local environment while hosting great conferences, meetings, and vacations.  

Coretta Scott King A.N.G.E.L. Award

Harris Rosen was one of the four people honored with the A.N.G.E.L. (Advancing Nonviolence through Generations of Exceptional Leadership) award on January 17, 2015. Mr. Rosen was acknowledged for his 20-plus years of commitment to Tangelo Park in which he launched a three-fold educational community service initiative that has had a direct impact on the increase of graduation rates amongst youngsters in the Tangelo community and helped lower the crime rate in the neighborhood.  

• Community Impact
• Service of Excellence
• Community Giving Form