Typically, at each Best of Marathon ceremony, the Rotary Club and Keys Weekly partner to present special awards to certain individuals and businesses for their contributions to our island over the last year.
This year, the individual we wanted to recognize is so special, we decided to give out just one.
Everyone knows our town comes together in the best of times, but it’s also amazing the way it comes together in the most challenging of times. Presented on Saturday night, this award is all about somebody who does that with the best of them. Because every time someone in town is going through something unimaginable, we all know the five words we’re about to see on Facebook: “Marathon, it’s that time again!”
For quite some time, I’ve been an admirer from afar of this gentleman’s work. But over the last few years working with him to promote his legendary events – and especially this past year when he threw his biggest fundraiser ever to benefit a good friend of mine – I got to see how much he and his family truly make it their life’s mission to spend a few months raising every penny possible for someone who could use a helping hand.
Everyone who’s ever been in a group chat with him for one of these events knows what I’m talking about – to the point where this year, I opened up my phone to a text asking if he was picking the right model, because he was up in Miami about to use stacks of cash to buy a jet ski to raffle off.
On behalf of the Weekly and the Rotary Club, it was my deepest honor to present this year’s Stanley Switlik Philanthropist of the Year award to Andy Sharf.
