Investing in innovative educational and wellness opportunities that strengthen communities, making meaningful, positive, and direct impact.

Our Legacy

The Peter Alfond Foundation (PAF) was established in 1993. Today, the Foundation is comprised of Peter's four children and three non-family trustees who, together, leverage the Foundation's resources to positively impact issues surrounding education and health and wellness in Puerto Rico and New England.

The association between philanthropy and the Alfond name long precedes the inception of the PAF. Harold and Bibby Alfond, Peter’s parents, provided their children with a template on how to live life; they believed in taking good care of their family while devoting the rest of their resources to charitable giving. 

Peter built upon his father’s principles in both business and philanthropy and strove to find ways to succeed in both ventures while honoring the truths and values he personally held. In business, he made a name for himself in 1981 when he moved to Puerto Rico to run Pan Am Shoe, the local manufacturing division of Dexter Shoe. This move to Puerto Rico allowed him to nurture and develop his relationship-centered style of leadership that ultimately made him one of the company’s most innovative and respected leaders. 

As his success grew, Pan Am began to fund projects close to the communities of its workers. Many of the employees of his factory had children in school districts across the island. The company began sponsoring programs that provided schools with supplies, construction materials, and free labor to renovate. As time went on, however, Peter desired to invest more personally in his philanthropy. In his own words, “Making a donation is a rite of passage. It marks your transition from being a child of the world – a recipient of care and support – to being an adult who wants to contribute to the positive side of the ledger.” To Peter, giving was both a vehicle to produce social change and an expression of personal growth.

“Making a donation is a rite of passage. It marks your transition from being a child of the world – a recipient of care and support – to being an adult who wants to contribute to the positive side of the ledger.”

Though Peter’s initial charitable giving focused on causes that his family had traditionally supported, he yearned to have a deeper connection with his work and began to seek out more catalytic projects. The Kripalu Yoga Center played a special role in shaping Peter’s views on philanthropy. As a customer, he took a step back from work and found healing and the ability to strike a healthier work-life balance with the help of the Kripalu instructors. As a donor, he learned to hold visionaries to sustainable practices. He became a large donor but favored matching grants that would incite the center to take responsibility for its organizational wellbeing. 

With each experience, he refined his own philanthropic strategy and came to believe that giving was an art that required an actively involved artist; a practice that esteems the role of charitable impulse and proper stewardship as equals. In other words, he believed in giving rooted in both the wisdom of the heart and the reasoning of the mind. The work of his foundation married his desire to do good with his business acumen. 

After his passing, Peter’s children took it upon themselves to continue his legacy and guide the Peter Alfond Foundation toward its mission of investing in innovative educational and wellness opportunities that strengthen communities. The Foundation is committed to making disruptive and transformative change anchored in its donor’s values.