Diagnosis leads to ideas for leaving a legacy
After a life-threatening health diagnosis a few years ago, I started to be more aware of what I wanted to accomplish with whatever time I had left. My first impulse was to take my $200,000 savings and go on some luxury vacation. That plan quickly became overshadowed by a sense of hollow superficiality.
The idea that kept going through my head was: What kind of legacy I was leaving? Would I even be remembered a year after my death? Would any of my work-related accomplishments really make any kind of long-term impact in the world?
Finally, after a night of sleeplessness, I decided to come up with as many high-impact project ideas that I could fund for $1,000 or less. This way, my savings could implement 200 worthy and (hopefully) long-lasting projects.
Fortunately for me, the scary diagnosis was reversed after more testing. Despite the “all clear,” I still plan to pursue this approach to leaving a positive legacy.
Here is a basic description of several projects that you could start for $1,000 (or less):
■ Cycling Without Age is a global movement started in Denmark. Volunteers transport the elderly to places from their childhood that have special memories. A $1,000 donation could help fund the group, or you could start a small branch. www. cyclingwithoutage.org.
■ Interview residents of a senior center. Write up their stories and publish them online or in print. www.oralhistory.org.
■ Start a neighborhood block club or crime watch: www.howtostartablockclub.org.
■ Begin a special book collection at your local library or homeless shelter. www.ala.org/tools/starting-library.
■ Clean headstones at a military cemetery. Get permission from the cemetery and hire a crew to help. tinyurl.com/y9jzpos8.
■ Clean up a mile of a road that needs some attention. tinyurl.com/yd4mya9o.
■ Donate an instrument to a school’s music program. www.mhopus.org.
■ Sponsor one or more inner-city youths to go to a summer camp. www.hopeforkids.org/about-us.
■ Give gift bags to veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. www.giftfromwithin.org.
■ Make bird feeders to hang outside windows of a hospice. www.worldbirdsanctuary.org/donate.
■ Organ donation — a no-cost way to make a huge impact by allowing someone to use your body parts after you are dead.
■ Plant a tree in someone’s name. Some of these programs only charge $5 per tree, so you could get a lot done for $1,000.
■ Sponsor part of an animal shelter. Shelters in your area: www.adoptapet.com/animal-shelters.
■ Sponsor a foreign-exchange student. Sample program: www.afsusa.org/ host-family.
■ Sponsor a set of construction tools for Habitat for Humanity. www.habitat.org.
■ Sponsor a homeless newsletter. This provides a source of revenue for street people. endhomelessness.org.
■ Sponsor an educational conference on a topic you are passionate about. One of many: www. ascd.org/ascd-sponsorship.aspx.
■ Help the homeless dress for job interviews. dressforsuccess.org.
For more ideas, check out volunteer sites such as www. VolunteerMatch.org .