Sarkeys Foundation
Philanthropy & Charity in Norman, OK
The Sarkeys Foundation was established in 1962 by S. J. Sarkeys, who was born in Lebanon in 1874 and emigrated to the US when he was seventeen. On route to South America, he stopped to visit a brother in St. Louis who showed him a new invention: the carbide lamp. Sarkeys found a market for the lamps in Oklahoma and, as he peddled them around the countryside, he started to buy farmland and, later, oil and gas leases. The successful production from these holdings became the basis for the several fortunes he made and lost during his lifetime.