The longtime University of Miami trustee and successful businessman, who passed away from Lou Gehrig's disease late last year, had been working to start a new institute that would search for cures for debilitating neurodegenerative disorders. His family members are now carrying on his dream.
As Paul J. DiMare looked out the window of the helicopter as it slowly circled storm-ravaged southern Miami-Dade County, the influential tomato farmer and successful businessman suddenly turned to his wife, Swanee, and said, "We must help. We absolutely need to help."
It was only a day or two after Hurricane Andrew had devastated Homestead and Florida City, and DiMare and his wife had taken the tour with a United States government official to survey the damage caused by the cyclone.
"He saw the tremendous devastation, and he also saw the Red Cross on the ground at work," Swanee DiMare recalled of that helicopter tour 30 years ago. "He became inspired by the Red Cross's efforts to aid hurricane victims and made it a mission to support the nonprofit, donating not only funds but his time and talents."
That was quintessential DiMare, a human being "who often looked upon the suffering of others and always helped," Swanee DiMare said.
That benevolence was pervasive throughout his life. Even as he succumbed to the complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease, the longtime University of Miami trustee and philanthropist continued to practice goodwill, making a multitude of phone calls late into the evening from his private study to rally support for finding a cure for the progressive neurodegenerative disorder—not for himself but for the thousands who suffer from it.
"It kept him going," Swanee DiMare said of her husband. "He read and learned everything he could about ALS and the medical research that was being done to find the cause and a cure. And he did so right up until his death."
DiMare, who, as CEO and president of DiMare Fresh became the largest grower of fresh-market tomatoes in the nation, passed away on Dec. 30. He was 81.
