With this newsletter, we begin an occasional feature highlighting our corporate sponsors. Businesses have played a vital role in our support of the Key West Library over the last 50 years. Behind those businesses are the decision-makers whose generosity has meant so much to us. We’d like our Friends to know more about them, beginning with the late Michael Halpern.

Michael Halpern — beloved Key West attorney and owner of the Southernmost House — was the first to step up when we formally created our Corporate Sponsor Program five years ago. He gave every year through the foundation he created in 2002 in his late wife Michelle’s name, whose mission is “to help children and families achieve their highest potential.” 

Michael’s son, Rafe Halpern, founder and executive chef of the Seaside Cafe at the Southernmost House, talks about his late father’s philosophy of giving.

Rafe: I was in fifth grade when my father sat my brothers and me around the dining room table and said that he wanted us to grow up understanding that there are people in need who might not be able to help themselves. He believed that everybody should get a fair shot and everybody has the right to a good education. Books and libraries were important to him. He had more books than anybody I’ve ever met in my life. He never put a book down. Whenever he wasn’t working or spending time with us, he was reading. And grammar! From the time we were little kids, my father was correcting our grammar! The Key West Library fit right into my father’s philosophy of philanthropy, giving anyone who walks through their doors a chance to help themselves.