Why We Made a Legacy Gift

After years of supporting many charities with mostly modest donations, we began to think about prioritizing our charitable outreach by giving more substantially, but to fewer charities, prioritizing those which were nearest and dearest to us. Part of that process involved thinking about our estate plan and how we wished our assets to pass after our deaths. We agreed that we wanted a portion of our estate to go to the charities we were most passionate about and have crafted estate documents to accomplish that.

SJD is one of the entities that we have provided for in this manner. It has been there for us over all of Candy’s life and most of Tom’s life. We met at SJD. Our rector, Ben Benitez left his “walkabout” while running for Diocesan Bishop to come to marry us in the Chapel. SJD was there for us when we married our children, lost our parents, and dealt with the triumphs and tragedies of life. Most of our close friends are fellow members of SJD and our faith journey together has been one of the joys of our life.

SJD has almost unlimited potential to be a place where the faithful gather, where we grow as disciples of Jesus, and where we go out into our community and beyond to serve and minister to a world that so desperately needs it. It is an honor and great pleasure for us to provide a legacy gift that will help to facilitate the exciting things which lie ahead for SJD as it lives out its mission of Changing Lives for God in Christ.