With Charity for All

I like to end the year on a positive note, and there have been many acts and events this past year that have had positive impact on our lives.  It is tiresome and depressing to see the huge number of negative email messages and news reports that come across the ethernet.  Frankly, many of them are either false, or are questionable in content. That keeps websites like Snopes and TruthorFiction busy, but it also distorts reality.

Here is my candidate for most positive story of 2013.

You may have heard about or read this story already.  It was disclosed last week that a man from Calgary, who won a Canadian lottery prize back in May, and somehow kept it secret for all this time, has decided to donate the entire $40 million prize to charity.

Tom Crist, a 64-year-old retired widower, has set up a trust fund along with his adult children to give away the prize money to various charitable organizations, but most of it is slated for the Canadian Cancer Society and the Tom Baker Cancer Centre.  He has already cut a cheque - Canadians spell funny - for $1.2 million to the latter charity.

Mr. Crist says that he has done quite well for himself and his children in his 44 year working career and he really doesn't need the money. 

Well, I say "Wow" to that!

The reasoning behind the gift is understandable, as well.  Tom lost his wife of 33 years to cancer two years ago after a six year battle with the disease.  What a wonderful gesture he is making to help in finding a cure!

The above story might have been the apex, but in doing the research on it, I found that this isn't the first time a Canadian has donated their winnings to charity.  Three years ago, 84-year-old Allen Large and his wife Violet won a lottery prize of over $11 million.  They promptly gave away their winnings, too.  Afterwards, they both said they never felt so good.

When Mr. Large was interviewed, he said that he and his wife had saved over $2  million for retirement and didn't have any need for the lottery winnings.  They did give $100,000 to each of 12 relatives before they made the charitable donations, but they never spent a penny of it on themselves.

In the same article, it was reported that another generous Canadian, Bob Erb, won $25 million in a 2012 Lotto Max drawing, and has donated over $8 million.  While he didn't give it all away, he has given the maximum he can without hurting his bank balance.

The above stories have me wondering if American lottery winners are as kind and generous with their winnings.  I cannot recall any stories similar to these about our winners, but it is true that we, as a people, are the most generous on earth.

With that in mind, I wish you a very happy and prosperous new year in 2014, and I hope that, if you are fortunate enough to win the lottery, we will see an article about your gift to charity with the proceeds.  In other words, I trust that you are in a position where you don't need to win the lottery to live well and prosper.