NAPLES, Fla. - eTradeWire -- Philanthropist Stephen Saks, a retired Miami-Dade County car wash owner who now calls Naples home, has made a transformative, $20 million donation to local nonprofits serving both the Jewish community and greater Southwest Florida.

The lead contribution is a $10 million endowment gift to the Jewish Federation of Greater Naples, the largest donation in the organization's history; with an additional $1 million for the local PJ Library, which provides free books to children.

Additional recipients are the Holocaust Museum & Cohen Educational Center; Baker Senior Center Naples, for its lunch program; Jewish National Fund; Temple Shalom, for youth programs; and Golden Paws Assistance Dogs.

The endowment will allow the Federation 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 the historic commitment before his recent retirement.

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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 not only through four years of high school but also enrolling at the Citadel, a military college in Charleston, South Carolina.

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 in 1968 to South Florida, where Saks built his first car wash in Miami –— a business that remains open, though no longer owned by the family.

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Saks would go on to own and operate a half-dozen car washes in Miami-Dade, 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 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.

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.