Legal Profession Look Out! A Change is A-Comin’!

May 2, 2010 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

A great legacy has been born, and I’m proud to be able to announce it!  J. Kim Wright’s book “Lawyers As Peacemakers” has been published by the American Bar Association and is now available.  We also did a fabulous Creating Legacy Studio interview with Kim, about her legacy journey to this point – “A Legal Rebel’s Legacy Story” – and a recording of it is available for download on The Studio program site.

I’ve been on this journey with Kim since just after the turn of the new millenium (can you say Y2K?) – actually a lot longer than that, only I didn’t know her.  We were both restless and somewhat disillusioned with the legal profession.  Okay, not so much the profession, or even lawyers themselves, but the system within which we all had to practice.  We (and it turns out a number of others) felt there had to be a better way to use the law to serve clients and help make their lives and businesses better.  So we started making stuff up, borrowing from other traditions and professions, and fitting these new approaches into the structure of the law.

Yeah, they were teaching negotiation techniques when I went through law school.  And mediation – facilitated negotiation providing parties assistance to resolve their own disputes without a third party making the decision for them – was coming on the scene.  (This dates me, I know, since most post- college age people have at least heard of mediation and have some sense for what it is – thank God.)

But many of us longed for more civility and more constructive … yes, well, healing, approaches to legal problems.  Why should the health care and spiritual professions be the only ones to heal with their work? 

The information age being what it was back when Y2K posed what turned out to be not so much threat and disaster as hype (oh and the media has gotten better with the latter since then hasn’t it?  But I digress …), the powers that be put me together with Kim Wright and it’s been a totally kindred legal experience ever since.  I was retiring from law practice then, to pursue the more developmental and creative sides of what I did with clients - help them prevent legal intrusions, have successful businesses and happy lives, and even make things better in the world.  And Kim was, dare I say, hell-bent on improving the way law is practiced: the entire profession.

As a legacy story, this book publication has all the great elements:  Kim discovered her passion and interests, knew who she wanted to serve and benefit, figured out a structure that worked for her and has now created a number of artifacts that will persist in producing social good – this book being one of many others and no doubt some to come.  And she did it all on a shoe-string with her guts and grit and determination and heart.  For her efforts she has already been recognized as one of the ABA’s Legal Rebels for 2009.

Who says a great legacy requires a large financial estate? Even with that, it still takes the underlying guts and grit and determination and heart first – to persist and pursue and bring something beneficial to life.

In the 528 pages of  “Lawyers as Peacemakers” Kim provides the reader with the first comprehensive look at the myriad approaches talented and caring lawyers have developed to do just what we were dreaming about when we met.  If she hasn’t personally met and interviewed all the pioneers in this movement to tell the stories of how they work together, heal and bring peace to conflict and discord, she knows 99% of them.  And she is their — our — champion. Heck, she’s a champion for the entire legal profession and the people it serves – with her help in a more therapeutic way. It is my fervent hope that her impact is huge – even while I recognize how hard it is to turn a ship as large as an entire profession.  Even a few degrees on the trim tab, like Kim has made, can make a big difference.

Kim tells me that while writing the book she gathered enough additional information to write a follow up companion to it and not repeat anything she talks about in Lawyers As Peacemakers.  I hope it will soon follow her magnificaent first book! 

May the positive change continue as others get on board.  Cheers, Dolly

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Enlightened Leadership, Legacy Stories Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Increasing The Power of Feminine Energy on the Planet

May 1, 2010 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

There is an amazing legacy project that starts today and runs for the next week – that you can access from the comfort of your home.  It’s called the Inspiring Women Summit.

The Summit is directed toward women for sure – as the primary demonstrators of feminine energies on the planet - in an effort to support them in greater use of the power of the feminine viewpoint and approach in the world.  And we here at Creating Legacy support that, because we want to see the power of the feminine viewpoint get stronger in terms of the way the world works.  Cultivating and nurturing a culture of contribution – living a legacy approach to life – certainly embodies that. 

However, while the word feminine – just check the dictionary – is most often defined with sex and gender characteristics, feminine and masculine (for that matter) are gender neutral terms.  Each of us possesses both feminine and masculine traits.  A great comparison of those qualities is available here (you may have to adjust the items under the proper columns depending on how it shows up on your computer, but you can download the Google version into Word). 

It is really how culture and sex role stereotypes have influenced you that will determine how comfortable you will be with expressing the feminine or masculine qualities you have access to.  And the context you are operating in will also be an influence – or a challenge to rise above and choose to use a different tool than the expected.

When I was training to be and practicing as a Registered Nurse, most nurses were female.  Not all.  But despite the highly scientific and technical aspects of the nursing profession, the fact that it was founded on caring put it squarely in the feminine domain and thus only a few strong guys were attracted to it.  That is not so true anymore.

Unlike my female predecessors and pioneers in the law, who may have been one of 5-10% of women in their law school classes, when I went through law school, my class was about 30% female.  Today, in both medicine and law – both previously the provinces of men – women make up about 50% of the graduating classes.  The focus on reading, research, writing, oratory and advocacy skills that make up legal education are clearly “something girls can do” … well, and thus do well in practice, too.  But historically, culturally, lawyers were men – not because women were not capable.  Even the skill sets of the law might be considered feminine in nature when compared with the hard physical labor of construction or combat jobs …

I’ve had two previous careers that gave me a lot of opportunity to consider the difference between a feminine and masculine approach to the subject matter and related tasks of the work.  I’ve seen males take a feminine approach to aspects of the work, and I’ve certainly seen (especially in law practice) females do their best to take on a masculine approach to the work – often thinking that is what they had to do to ‘compete’ in the workplace or the courtroom.

Well, it’s not true.  Either gender can use, hopefully the best of, the feminine or masculine energies in approach to their work.  What’s great about the Inspiring Women Summit is that we’ll get a chance to explore more of the feminine approach - as well as how women can emerge as stronger leaders in the world.  In my view, it’s certainly time in history for a greater emphasis on the feminine, from everyone.  And no, I’m not trying to be emasculating as some in the culture might suggest.  I’ll be the first to take on and use masculine energies when I need to.  It’s just that I know the difference … have a more varied toolbox perhaps than folks who insist on sticking with rigid sex role stereotypes. 

I have my parents to thank for this.  They taught me that I could do whatever I wanted to do based on merit, not on gender.

I wonder how clear these distinctions are for the generation of women who follow mine.  At the baby end of the baby boom and the leading edge of Generation X, I know the struggles of my predecessor women professionals and business owners - the trail blazers – that allowed me to be more of a pioneer with my work, discovering, designing, and building new approaches as opposed to just getting a foothold.  How do the women who come after view their power (‘ability to do’) to take on the important work they have in life and then make amazing contributions they have to make?  And their role – if not trail blazer or pioneer, how do we best characterize what they are up to?

Would love to hear your thoughts on that.  Cheers, Dolly

Filed Under: Blog, Coaching, Enlightened Leadership, Legacy Stories, Life Balance/Harmony Among Life Arenas Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Height of Career? Time to Get Busy For Love …

March 27, 2010 By Dolly Garlo 1 Comment

Whether at the end of one successful career or in the middle of your third career, the reward is to really get busy with what you love – making the sort of contribution that working merely to create earned income doesn’t allow.  Making that sort of career transition isn’t always easy…

http://www.abajournal.com/weekly/former_paul_weiss_lawyer_is_busy_giving_away_money

Giving away money is only one way to do it - but it’s not about the money.  It’s about the effort and expending it realizes something money can’t buy.  It’s an experience available to all successful business owners and professionals. 

Our media likes to tell the stories of the ‘big splash’ with lots of dollar signs, but there are plenty of others waiting to be created … and told.

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Legacy Stories, Meaning, Personal Legacy, Purpose

Legacy In Story

March 26, 2010 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

Remember last year’s Clint Eastwood movie, Gran Torino?  It is a story about the clash of deeply held cultures and beliefs, and about the common values of life that unite us all.  The story itself is one of legacy, as is Mr. Eastwood’s lifetime of work.

For whatever else it depicts, Gran Torino focuses in on how we impact others, how we are called upon to create that impact, whether or not we respond to the call, and what we leave behind to benefit them (that is uniquely ours to give) when we discover and feel called to give it.  The story is as powerful an example of legacy in development as any I can think of.  I wasn’t so crazy about the ending, but for purposes of the movie, it fit.

I was especially moved by an excerpt from the lyrics of the title song:

Your world
Is nothing more
Than all
The tiny things
You’ve left
Behind

So tenderly
Your story is
Nothing more
Than what you see
Or
What you’ve done
Or will become
Standing strong
Do you belong
In your skin
Just wondering

And I am wondering the same.  Do you belong in your skin?  Are you comfortable there?  Are you truly exercising your unique gifts and giving back from there to make the world, your little corner of it, a better place?

We have each been endowed with gifts and talents that we are especially good at, that may well be easy for us, and even enjoyable – that can also benefit others. Will you tap into the pure joy and personal meaning that comes with doing what’s easy and enjoyable for you … for others? It doesn’t take hard work to help others, just good work – the kind you’re ready and willing to do.  Will you grow into and become those attributes and consciously leave behind those tiny things that you can, or maybe even something more? Are you contributing to life in the ways only you are able?

Start by recognizing today all you are good at and all you are grateful for … then build from there.

Filed Under: Blog, Legacy Stories, Meaning, Personal Legacy, Positive Thoughts & Inspired Ideas Tagged With: , , , , ,

Innovation As Legacy

March 11, 2010 By Dolly Garlo 2 Comments

PBS has amazing programs!  We all really need to watch that channel more often!

In celebration of being on the air 30 years, PBS through its Nightly Business Report (NBR) program,  collaborated (one of my favorite words!) with the Wharton School of business at University of Pennsylvania and its Knowledge@Wharton website on innovation and entrepreneurship.  Their goal: to identify the 30 innovations that have changed life most dramatically during the past 30 years.

The resulting program, the Top 30 Innovations of the Last 30 Years, is also featured on both the Wharton and PBS websites.   NBR program viewers in over 250 markets across the U.S. and Knowledge@Wharton readers from around the world submitted some 1200 suggestions for the best innovations they thought had shaped the world in that time.  A panel of eight judges from Wharton selected the top 30.  A fascinating list to check out — true legacies all.

This got me to thinking about my favorite teacher R. Buckminster Fuller, the man who coined the term “Spaceship Earth” and the phrase ”doing more with less.”  He encouraged people to create artifacts – very much a personal legacy concept.

Bucky’s stated intention – as a lifelong experiment with his own life, made as a conscious decision in his early 30′s - was “to make the world work for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or disadvantage of anyone.”

He answered the question of why there were humans in the universe, with the notion that we are basically local information gatherers and problem solvers.  While we are more complex than that, it is an accurate observation.

Bucky focused his life on solving complex problems through an approach he called “comprehensive anticipatory design science.” The approach emphasized individual initiative and integrity, whole systems thinking, scientific rigor and faithful reliance on nature’s underlying principles.

He thought it was not helpful to try to change people, but rather important to change the context in which they operate, by providing innovative solutions to the problems they face.  That way, ultimately no one would have to work to ‘earn a living’ (we are, after all, already alive), but we would each contribute what we’re good at to positively impact the world around us: gathering information about and solving the problems that presented themselves uniquely to us.

What if we did more of that?  What if you took a look at what you do well and easily and even take joy in doing, and looked around to see who you could assist by creating something that would benefit them in some way?

If your brain is already spinning with ideas, you are developing a legacy consciousness.  Building anything from that thinking would make the planet a bit better place.

If what you build happens to answer Bucky’s urgent call for a design science revolution to make the world work for all.  If it:

  • “emphasizes a new design, material, process, service, tool, technology, or any combination”
  • “is part of an integrated strategy dealing with key social, economic, environmental, and cultural issues”
  • “present[s] a bold, visionary, tangible initiative that is focused on a well-defined need of critical importance [and is]
  • regionally specific yet globally applicable, and backed up by a solid plan and the capability to move the solution forward”

Then you might even win the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, as stated on the Buckminster Fuller Institute’s (bfi.org) website.

My ultimate joy at Creating Legacy would be to work side by side with you in helping you do just that, or even some fraction of that, which, in your own unique way “makes a difference now that lasts for generations.”

I’d love to hear your ideas.

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Enlightened Leadership, Legacy Stories, Personal Legacy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Living Legacy of Chocolate Chip Cookies Designed To Carry On

October 28, 2009 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

Over seventy years of chocolate chip cookies is a legacy project that most everyone can relate to.  Not seventy year old cookies, relegated to a museum.  Rather a process of serving warm, just out of the oven cookies for people to enjoy week after week over that time.

Just goes to show everyone can contribute something – and with the right planning, what lives on beyond your lifetime can simply be an extension of what was joyfully given during it.  Candace “Dacie” Moses provides us with an example of just how big even a small gift, made sustainable, can grow to be.

Dacie Moses was a librarian at the Carleton College in Northfield, MN, in the U.S., where she was awarded an honorary master of arts degree in 1969.  But her real claim to fame, both in the legacy she defined and lived, as well as what she left for future generations is the Dacie Moses House.  During her life, Dacie invited students to her house for freshly baked cookies, Sunday brunches (for up to 50 people), to hold conversations, watch TV or play the piano, snack from her refrigerator or call home from her phone.

Valuing the creation of community around warm chocolate chip cookies and conversation, Dacie did one more thing before she died in 1983 at the age of 97: in her will she donated her house to the Carleton Alumni Association.  She
instructed that it be used as it was during her lifetime – available as a hostel for students and alumni, that the upstairs apartment be rented, and that the rents received be used to maintain and improve the property.  In a separate trust, she provided funds to pay for supplies needed to make sure the freshly baked cookies remain available and to cover the cost of the Sunday brunches.

Two students still live there each year, overseeing and caring for the house, which continues to be a student and  alumni gathering place.  Her own bedroom and private bath are rented out as a hostel to Carleton visitors.  The legacy Dacie lived, lives on to benefit others.  It now even has its own website, a following on Facebook, and a video on YouTube that chronicles Dacie telling her own living legacy story.

The following tribute was written about this legacy:

“Let it (Dacie’s home) become a place of ministry, the rarest kind of ministry, a ministry not of preaching or persuasion or programming, but of simple hospitality – for this was the ministry Dacie performed over
all those long and faithful years… In the hospitable space of Dacie’s house we have always been free to be who we are without embarrassment, inadequacy or shame.” 
(from the Carleton VOICE, Vol. 46, No. 3, p.34, by Parker J. Palmer, alumni 1961)

From the conviction of her values, her joy in life and a little bit of property, Dacie Moses created a lot in her life that she consciously designed as an enduring legacy.

Doing something similar requires only that you

  • take stock – of what you value, what brings you joy and what you have to contribute,
  • develop a structure for it,
  • find and coordinate the advisors you’ll need to make it happen, and
  • get it going in a way will live on when you choose to step away. 

At Creating Legacy, we help you put that all in place.  From a local community project to a global enterprise, the difference is only a matter of scale built on your unique desires and circumstances.  Who would you like to impact, and how?  I personally take great joy in helping people make that happen.

Just what might your legacy be?

Filed Under: Blog, Legacy Stories, Positive Thoughts & Inspired Ideas Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Passion for Life is the Stuff of Legacy

October 14, 2009 By Dolly Garlo 1 Comment

My friend and fellow blogger Jeannette recently lost her beloved husband.  Having been married only a few months now myself, but to someone who is the-love-of-my-life-like-I-had-no-idea-could-be, I can empathize with the depth of the void that loss must be. 

A consumate writer, Jeannette wrote in her Write Speak Sell blog, a tribute to her husband describing what he left in the minds and hearts, not to mention lives of others — his legacy.  It reminded me that we all have a legacy, however conscious we are of creating it, and others will be impacted by it.  And they are most profoundly impacted by the things that we do, that we do well and happily because we are most passionate about them.  Read Jeannette’s beautiful tribute here.  It’s a legacy in itself, a legacy of tribute tangibly preserved and offered to the world in a way that will benefit many who read it.

She also included a lovely blog post from Seth Godin about decision making, concluding that recognizing and exercising our power to make decisions allows us to make a bigger difference.  Very nicely stated. 

When you let the notion of legacy develop in your own consciousness, what bubbles up about it?  What does your life mean to others?  What would you like it to mean?  How might you get into action to create something tangible around your passions that will benefit others?  The world needs more of that …

Filed Under: Blog, Designing Your Legacy, Legacy Stories Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Youth Is No Obstacle To Legacy

September 2, 2009 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

Austin Gutwein wouldn’t have called it a legacy when he started. He was just a normal boy, living a normal life, but one day he just knew he wanted to make a difference.

 

Austin was only around 10 years old when his legacy project was born. He saw a video about children in Africa orphaned because their parents contracted a disease called HIV/AIDS. He realized the kids in the video were just like him, only he was a lot more fortunate; and he was inspired to do something to help. He asked himself the all important question ‘what can I do?’

 

So he decided to use something he loved, basketball, as a way to help.

 

On World AIDS Day 2004, Austin pledged to shoot 2,057 free throws, representing the number of children orphaned in a single school day because of AIDS. He got sponsors for his effort, and raised almost $3,000 USD that day. He gave the money to a humanitarian organization called World Vision where it was used to help 8 African children. The experience really moved him … to want to do even more.

 

After that first event, Austin decided to create an annual World AIDS Day event and recruit other kids to shoot free throws with him, calling the endeavor Hoops of Hope. In that second year he got about 1000 people to participate in a sponsored free-throw event. That year he raised over $35,000. It’s now a 501c3 tax exempt non-profit corporation headquartered in his home of Arizona called Hoops of Hope, Inc. The project has grown to include events all across the U.S. and several international locations.

 

This legacy resulted from having an idea using something as simple as the enjoyment of basketball, adding to it some action and persistence, the development of consistent systems to create and leverage events, sharing the idea and getting others involved. Here are the benefits of doing this work that have already been accomplished (while Austin continues his “day job” of going to school):

 

In 2006, Hoops of Hope participants raised $85,000 USD to help build the Johnathan Sim Legacy School in Twachiyanda, Zambia, which will house 1000 kids who would otherwise have to travel over 60 miles to the next closest school. Construction was completed by October 2007, including two large buildings each with several classrooms, a new well, and teacher housing that is under construction.

 

In 2007, Austin’s organization sought to raise $150,000 USD to build a medical testing lab and voluntary counseling center in Sinazongwe, Zambia. That goal was exceeded by $50,000 USD and the additional money was used to provide 1,000 caregiver kits to the medical lab, and furnishings to the 2006 Johnathan Sim Legacy School.

Because of the overwhelming need for AIDS testing and treatment, in 2008 Hoops of Hope plans included raising enough funds to build a second medical testing lab and counseling center in Zambia, along with additional Care Giver Kits.The total goal for 2008 was $290,000 USD, earmarked for these projects, but the organization raised $405,000, completing construction of a lab in Sinazongwe, building a water system in Kenya and beginning to build a second clinic in Chilal, Zambia. Austin’s organization continues to partner with World Vision, providing an example of how collaboration with an existing organization can be successfully utilized to create your own separate legacy project.

 

And his efforts and connections allow 100% of the funds raised through the Hoops of Hope free-throw marathon events to go to identified projects. Administrative costs are covered by private donations.

 

Another goal was to provide 1,000 bicycles for the caregivers through World Vision’s partnership with World Bicycle Relief – a simple, sustainable form of transportation bringing these programs to even more people who need them.

 

Already in 2009, Hoops of Hope has completed $120,000 of funding for the Chilala clinic and raised $41,000 for 250 bicycles and 750 mosquito nets for caregivers in Sinazongwe. Goals focus on raising $600,000 more for additional construction projects. See http://www.hoopsofhope.org/project-goals-history.html for details. See the amazing power of connection and partnership with this list representing current events http://www.hoopsofhope.org/event-results.html

 

Austin draws his inspiration from The Starfish Story (original author, Loren Eisley). A smart and realistic young man, he realizes he cannot help the 15 million and growing population of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Driven by a desire to do something to make a difference, though, he also realizes that shouldn’t be something that stops him. Here’s the story that fuels his commitment to act:

“One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed
a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean.
Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?”
The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean.
The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.”
“Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish?
You can’t make a difference!”
After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish,
and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said…
“I made a difference for that one.”

Which starfish are you committed to save?

Written by:  Dolly M. Garlo, RN, JD, PCC

Filed Under: Blog, Legacy Stories Tagged With: , , , , , ,

It’s Good For You

August 30, 2009 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

Research shows that approaching life from a spirit of giving and focus on making a contribution has positive health impacts including improved life-satisfaction, physical and mental health and even living longer. A great legacy created by Sir John Marks Templeton serves to demonstrate – and perpetuate – these benefits.

The name makes him sound like British royalty, and he was created a Knights Bachelor in 1987 for his philanthropic efforts. He was born in the state of Tennessee in the U.S., but lived most of his life in the Bahamas, and is probably best known as the Chartered Financial Analyst who became a billionaire by pioneering the use of globally diversified mutual funds – through his now numerous Templeton Funds for investors.

Beyond his work, however, Templeton’s great interest was in spirituality, and he built a great legacy based on it. In 1972, he established the Templeton Prize to honor individuals who make “an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works” as stated on the organization’s website. He called recipients “entrepreneurs of the spirit,” and the first prize was given in 1973 to Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who received $85,000 for her charities. Based on sound management, the prize has grown to around $1.6 million annually.

To administer the prize, in 1987 Templeton established the John Templeton Foundation. It now awards around sixty million dollars every year to institutions and people for spiritual and scientific activities that explore values such as the nature of love, gratitude, forgiveness, and creativity – in an effort to reconcile science and religion without diminishing either. The Foundation made the prize and other grant-making activities sustainable, and though Templeton passed from this earth in 2008, his legacy is still very much alive.

In 2001, the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love was founded with a grant from the foundation. It studies unselfish love and the benefits of giving back. The institute’s most recent report “It’s Good to be Good 2009: Health and the Generous Heart” is available on the site. The report details that developing a generous way of being and then doing or giving from that state indeed has benefits for the giver.

I mention Templeton not to emphasize what someone with billions can do – most people readily get that, but think they cannot do something similar. Maybe not at the same scale, but you can do something that will be as important for the recipient of your efforts.

Rather, I provide this example to show how one person, during his lifetime, used his career and his wealth to really address the things he was passionate about. I also provide the example to demonstrate that there are funds available for all kinds of great projects to benefit people and the planet. Creating legacy is not just about disseminating wealth, but about your authentic interest and willingness to act from there. That’s the foundation from which all great legacies are built.

Filed Under: Blog, Legacy Stories, Wellness Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Refuge From War Becomes Refuge For All

July 21, 2009 By Dolly Garlo Leave a Comment

I started my own Creating Legacy journey when, as a nurse and attorney practicing health care law, studying to become a professional coach, and developing my company Thrive!!, I began some of the hardest work I’d ever done. I worked with my sister, also a high achiever and busy physician and mother of three, to help our parents begin their departure from this earth.

The Garlo Girls: first generation daughters of Polish and Lithuanian immigrant physicians, we were no strangers to valuing hard work and to the ideas of accomplishment, escaping adversity to create a better life, and passing along something meaningful to future generations. How to truly honor what we were taught and the gifts we had received from them — and deal with the myriad of issues including aging, illness, treatment and end of life decisions, navigating the healthcare systems, understanding and implementing an estate plan , and on and on — was a bigger job that we anticipated. Especially while trying to navigate our own careers and participate in our own families and communities.

Coming from little to nothing, our parents escaped Communist and Nazi occupations and arrived in the U.S. in 1948 with a few suitcases and our brother, a four year old. They were unsure and fearful, though elated by the opportunity this move provided, and that their children would not have to go through the adversity they had experienced. Through work, study, saving and investment, the family was able to acquire some 300 acres of farmland over a 30 year period. As our father’s last illness took him away from being able to tend the land, his refuge from the possibility of another war, we were faced with the question of what to do with this property. More importantly, we wanted to figure out how to keep the meaning of that land alive.

As busy professionals ourselves and living far away from the family farm, figuring out what to do involved a maze of new issues, advisors, land use and tax matters and paperwork. I often thought how nice it would be to have one advisor or set of resources that could have helped us through the myriad of family, property, financial, health care, legal and personal life, not to mention emotional and other issues and decisions …

“The farm” had always been a refuge of sorts, where no hunting was permitted to allow all manner of land and water flora and fauna to prosper there. While we focused on how to keep that meaning and purposes alive, as serendipity would have it we discovered the possibility of donating the land to create the county’s first park. In keeping with the spirit of the place, we negotiated, thoughtfully crafted agreements and created the Garlo Heritage Nature Preserve. Portions were subsequently named and dedicated by the park commissioners to all the family members who had been involved. See www.senecacounty.com/parks/Garlo.htm.

I had no idea how important that decision would be or how valuable, not only to us as we struggled to determine just how to properly manage this large piece of property, but also to scores of people who came after us. Since its formation in 1999, the county park commissioners have done a superb job of honoring the family’s values for the property, and have built it into a natural resource that people in the surrounding area use and likewise honor. Scout troops learn camping skills, build accessible trails and plant trees. School groups learn about nature first-hand. Volunteer groups maintain the nature preserve. Horse-lovers ride the equestrian trails. Handicap-accessible boardwalks and strategically placed benches allow the elderly and others whom might not get there commune with the peace and quiet of nature in the wooded countryside. All enjoy their year-round outdoor experiences there. The most recent addition has been a Montessori nature day pre-school program conducted at the preserve.

All these results occurred because of the efforts of others to whom this valuable land resource has been passed on. What started as an idea, became a set of activities coupled with a carefully structured contribution and estate plan, and resulted in a sustainable operation. Without fully realizing what we were doing at the time, the farm has become a living legacy that we can enjoy and feel good about, knowing that others can also enjoy this resource for generations.

The “Garlo Girls” and next generation of family continue to visit the nature preserve and marvel at the developments there. We also continue to be deeply moved at the seemingly magical evolution of a dream in ways that honor our family’s love of nature and preservation and continues to pleasantly surprise.

Written by: Dolly M. Garlo, RN, JD, PCC

Filed Under: Blog, Legacy Stories Tagged With: , , ,
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