As much as Pamela Polani likes to joke with her boys that she “majored in Maybelline” in high school, sons Ariel (17 in Febru-ary) and Lior (12) know better than anyone that there’s more to Mom’s overall makeup than meets the eye.
They understand that the Boca-based attorney (she specializes in estate planning, probate and foreclosure defense for her clients) donates time and legal services to those in need. They’ve seen their mother pack brown paper bags filled with nonperishables and bottled water, just in case the family (including husband Mark) drives past someone on a street corner who can’t afford a meal.
And they realize, along with friends and family who know her best, that the details of Polani’s volunteer work on behalf of organizations from Boca Helping Hands to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum could fill a 10-foot parchment scroll.
But even a résumé as steeped in selflessness as hers doesn’t quite explain Polani’s desire last fall to launch a first-ever Walk to End Alzheimer’s at Mizner Park when 1) the national Alzheimer’s Association already staged an annual county walk in West Palm Beach and 2) she had no personal connection to the disease.
For more on this story, pick up the January issue of Boca Raton magazine.
