By Jim Utter
Director of Journalism
Stephen Saks, a retired longtime car wash owner in the Miami-Dade County area, has donated $20 million to various Southwest Florida organizations.
Saks, who will turn 95 in June, relocated to South Florida with his wife in 1968 Saks built his first car wash in Miami – a business that remains open today, though under different ownership.
Entities Saks operated include Wash N Wax Inc. and Dadeland Car Wash Inc. Saks eventually owned and operated a half-dozen car washes in Miami-Dade.
Among his donations, Saks, who now lives in Naples, Florida, donated $11 million to the Jewish Federation of Greater Naples, including $1 million for the local PJ Library, which provides free books to children.
Additional recipients of donations are the Holocaust Museum & Cohen Educational Center; the Baker Senior Center Naples’ lunch program; Jewish National Fund; Temple Shalom’s youth programs; and Golden Paws Assistance Dogs.
“The older one gets, the more likely their priorities change,” Saks said in a statement. “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.”
“We have a much more vital, vibrant Jewish community because of what Steve has been able to provide,” said JFGN president and CEO Emeritus Jeffrey Feld.
“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.”
Saks was born in 1930 in Paterson, New Jersey, to immigrant parents from Poland (his father) and France (his mother). He was sent to military school in South Carolina, remaining there through high school and enrolled at The Citadel, a military college in Charleston, S.C.
At the suggestion of his father, Saks enrolled at the Chicago College of Optometry, where he earned a doctorate degree and served in the Korean War at an evacuation hospital.
Saks, his wife, their two adult children and three grandchildren all moved to Naples in 2018.
