Generosity as a Lifestyle: Transforming Lives & Shaping Communities
When was the last time you made someone’s day with your beautiful smile or a simple kind word of encouragement? When was the last time someone did that for you? When was the last time you were able to do something for someone that changed their life? Has anyone ever given you a gift or spent time with you so much that it changed your life? How did you feel when you encountered any of these scenarios? Hi, I’m Jeremy Reeves and I am a board member of Leaders of Today Central Ohio. Today, I would like to dissect our core value of generosity. Though it comes in various ways, it's always timely, almost always accepted, and benefits both the giver and the receiver.
What is generosity? By default, in my mind, I think of generous people as the ones that give large sums of money- you know, the people that have large buildings named after them on college campuses. Although these are great examples of generous individuals, I would like to think that the most generous among us are the unsung heroes that we see every day. They are our parents, family members, teachers, coaches, and perhaps even our neighbors. What does the word generous actually say about itself? If we break it down, this is what we get:
Gen - that which produces
Er - more than
Ous - full of or abounding
So a generous gift produces something more than what it was originally and then causes fullness and/or abundance. If a gift must produce more than its original self and cause fullness or abundance, that would suggest that a generous gift is a transaction that impacts more than just two people. The receiver of the original gift is responsible for making the gift generous. The gift itself no matter how small or large doesn't actually become generous until it produces more than itself causing fullness or abundance.
At Leaders of Today, we realize that we are just a conduit of generosity. We want to be an unsung hero in young people’s lives that positively impacts change for generations. We receive gifts from donors that invest in our mission so that we can take that gift and make it generous by passing it along to teens and young adults with a passion for bettering their communities. We then partner recipients with mentors to help to make their dreams become a reality and yield fruitful results. It's the recipients' response that makes the monetary gifts generous. Rather than paying the microgrants back, they pay the generous gifts of money, time, and mentorship forward by uplifting their communities. We want to help those that have a dream to change that small portion of their world that positively affects all of us, and that change takes place because of generosity.
We believe that giving students, the leaders of today, the opportunity to serve and make an impact will create vision and entrepreneurship for a better tomorrow.
Contact us to learn more about our mission and work, or to become involved yourself at
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