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Federation, local organizations receive transformative $20 million donation
Lead $10M endowment gift is largest in JFGN's history
Courtesy of Jewish Federation of Greater Naples
Naples philanthropist Stephen Saks, a retired Miami-Dade County car wash owner who moved to town only a few years ago, has made a transformative $20 million donation to local nonprofits serving both the Jewish community and Southwest Florida.
The lead contribution is a $10 million endowment gift to Jewish Federation of Greater Naples, the largest donation in the organization’s history, with an additional $1 million for the local PJ Library.
Additional recipients are: Holocaust Museum & Cohen Education Center; Baker Senior Center Naples, for its lunch program; Jewish National Fund-USA; Temple Shalom, for youth programs; and Golden PAWS Assistance Dogs.
“The endowment will allow Jewish Federation of Greater Naples to further invest in Jewish event programming and organizational and community support for generations to come,” said President and CEO Emeritus Jeffrey Feld, who was instrumental in helping secure this historic commitment before his recent retirement.
“We have a much more vital, vibrant Jewish community because of what Steve has been able to provide,” said Feld, noting how both a classroom and wing of the Nina Iser Jewish Cultural Center and the lobby of Temple Shalom next door and the overall Pine Ridge Road campus are named after Saks.
“Steve has constructed his philanthropy in such a way that it directly helps people build a community, to be able to come together, whether they're coming to the temple for religious purposes or to the Iser Center for more social and cultural opportunities,” Feld added. “It’s a legacy gift with an immediate impact — and an investment that will serve as a leading example and inspiration to others in our community.”
From optometry to soap suds
Saks, who turns 95 in June, was born in 1930 in Paterson, New Jersey, to immigrant parents from Poland (his father) and France (his mother). A self-described teen troublemaker, he was sent to military school in South Carolina, remaining there through four years of high school while also enrolling at the Citadel, a military college in Charleston.
At the suggestion of his father, who manufactured upholstered furniture, Saks decided to enroll at the Chicago College of Optometry. He would earn a doctorate degree before being called to duty as an eye doctor at an evacuation hospital in Korea — the last time he would practice medicine.
Back home in New Jersey, Saks got married before embarking on a career as a contractor. After the births of their children, the family relocated to South Florida in 1968, where Saks built his first car wash in Miami — a business that remains open, though no longer owned by the family.
Saks would go on to own and operate a half-dozen car washes in Miami-Dade County, enlisting his two children to work part-time as teenagers while in school and then again as adults.
In 2018, Saks and his wife, their two adult children and three grandchildren moved to Naples, a place they had grown to admire on family vacations.
Their Jewish philanthropic journey began here with a $1 million donation to the international PJ Library program, which provides free books that celebrate Jewish values and culture to families with children.
“The older one gets, the more likely their priorities change,” Saks said. “I wanted to feel a sense that my long, financially successful life would serve a higher purpose. Judaism locally would be at the forefront of my charitable giving path.”
Feld called the latest donation by Saks a shining example of the local community’s ample generosity. More than the bottom-line value, that commitment exemplifies Tzedakah, the Jewish obligation to help those in need.
“It’s important that he gets the accolades for his generosity, but what Steve has done in terms of providing this for the community and bringing people together — as he says, ‘people helping people’ — can be an inspiration for all of us.”
