By Dani Luckett, GCC chief development officer

In 2024, Goodman Community Center (formerly Atwood Community Center) will mark its 70th anniversary of strengthening lives and securing futures. Even though that’s more than a year away, it will come quickly.

To celebrate this major milestone, GCC is excited to launch its Love & Legacy campaign to strengthen and secure the center’s future by inspiring and documenting 70 planned gifts for Goodman over the next two years — just in time for this milestone.

A planned gift is a charitable gift made during your lifetime or upon your death as part of your overall financial assets or estate. People include planned gifts in their wills, and others simply designate a charity like GCC as a beneficiary of an insurance policy or retirement account. For many, these gifts are often the largest and most impactful they are ever able to make.

Whether you have supported GCC with an annual gift for decades, served as a loyal volunteer, utilized center services, been a loyal reader of Eastside News or just enjoyed being our neighbor, we would be honored to have you include GCC in your estate plans. By sharing your planned gift intentions with GCC you can:

Experience the joy of giving and make a personal connection with GCC during your lifetime.
Enjoy the satisfaction of knowing your legacy will make a difference in your community.
Play a role in determining how your legacy gift will be used at GCC.
Potentially reduce taxable income during your lifetime by giving gifts of securities and/or distributions from an individual retirement account.

As part of our Love & Legacy campaign, GCC will host a series of workshops for the community. These workshops will provide tools and ideas to create your own legacy planning and charitable gift making.

The first workshop, “How to Prepare an Obituary,” is Aug. 24 at 2:30 p.m. in Ironworks by Karen Faster, a longtime writing coach, editor and GCC supporter. Writing an obituary can be a monumental and stressful task. Whether you want to write your own obituary or a memorial for someone you love, this workshop is for you.

Faster learned to write obituaries as a cub newspaper reporter in rural Minnesota. In the decades since, she has written obituaries for relatives and helped friends draft obituaries for their relatives. Now retired from years of editing, she hopes to continue using her skills as a writing coach.

For more information about the Love & Legacy campaign and upcoming workshops, visit goodmancenter.org/love-and-legacy or email dani@goodmancenter.org.

Previous Next