The Hemingway Look-Alike Society on Sept. 30 donated $5,000 to the Key West High School marching band in support of the band’s performances and upcoming touring schedule.
The donation was inspired in part by the band’s invitation to participate in the 2024 London New Year’s Day Parade, the Key West community’s enthusiastic support in raising funds to underwrite the trip to London, and the band’s stellar performance in the international parade.
The society is composed of winners of Sloppy Joe’s Hemingway® Look-Alike Contest that highlights Key West’s annual Hemingway Days, a celebration of Ernest Hemingway’s literary talent, exuberant lifestyle and 1930s residence on the island. Each year, the contest draws more than 125 competitors who emulate the author’s stocky, bearded later-life appearance.
Joe Maxey, the 2019 Look-Alike Contest winner and a current judge of the competition, presented the ceremonial check Monday to band director Gary Hernandez at the high school. Other Hemingway Look-Alikes, representatives of Sloppy Joe’s and the Community Foundation, and band students were on hand for the donation.
The society began awarding scholarship funds to Florida Keys students in 1999. Since then, more than $1 million has been raised through efforts of the Look-Alikes and their supporters. The society’s scholarship endowment fund with the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys is now the organization’s second largest.
According to Maxey, the Look-Alike Society is expanding its philanthropic efforts to support worthy organizations in Key West and the Florida Keys as well as providing scholarships. The donation to the band is among its 2024 activities to carry out that enhanced mission.
