Theora Webb on Serving Her Community

If you’ve ever met Theora Webb, you probably know her as Bunny. “I don’t have a good story behind it,” laughs the 79-year-old Port St. Lucie resident. “From the day I was born, I was called Bunny, and nobody seems to remember why.”

In the late 1940s, assigned to serve in public information as part of the Marshall Plan at the behest of President Truman, Webb’s father moved the family from Washington, D.C. to Paris, where they lived for eight years. Young Bunny attended French schools and soon
became fluent in the language. Upon the family’s return to America, she graduated from high school at the age of 16.

As an adult, she decided to pursue a path similar to her father’s, working in various communications roles over the years. As founder and president of a boutique consulting firm in Washington, D.C., she provided counsel to clients in corporate, government, and trade-association sectors; she later served as director of public affairs for the International Trade Administration in the U.S. Department of Commerce and as director of diversity, work-life, and community relations for Duracell Business Management Group, a division of The Gillette Company.

Today, Webb remains committed to building mutually beneficial community/corporate partnerships through her presence on several nonprofit boards, including Impact 100 St. Lucie and the Cleveland Clinic Florida Regional Board. Her extensive background also aides in her role as board secretary for The Community Foundation Martin St. Lucie, where her duties include developing policy, ensuring compliance to government and industry rules and regulations, and recruiting philanthropic members.

During the pandemic, TCF responded to shifting community needs, coalescing local funding into two funder consortiums to evaluate grant applications associated with COVID-related services. “The consortiums were initially focused on funding basic needs caused by the escalating number of clients and has continued to field grant applications related to adjusted and enhanced health and human services,” says Webb.

One project she is currently working on with her fellow staff members is TCF’s application for accreditation from The National Standards for U.S. Foundations. Receiving accreditation, says Webb, “will take The Community Foundation Martin St. Lucie
to the next level, assuring the community of our integrity, our application of best practices, and our effective and efficient use of time and talent in serving both the philanthropic and nonprofit communities across our two counties and beyond.”

Webb says she has lived “everywhere” but loves life as a retired Port St. Lucie resident. “I had an aunt and uncle who lived in Port St. Lucie, right off of Prima Vista, and we used to come down and visit them so my husband could play golf,” shares the recently widowed Webb. “Then one day, instead of turning right to go back to their house, we turned left and came into PGA Village. We bought property that very weekend and built a house.”

That was in January 2000—and Webb has never looked back. Her favorite part of living in the area, she says, is the golf. “But I so wish I played better,” she says.