Amelia Leconte remembers her mother paying the monthly bills and then examining the balance in her checkbook to see if there was enough left to donate to a worthy cause. “After making a gift she would always say to me ‘I wish I could do more,’” Amelia says.

She comes from a long line of women known for their charitable efforts. As Amelia learned generosity from her mother, her mother learned from Amelia’s grandmother.

“There are many stories in our family about my grandmother,” Amelia says. “Once she learned that a man needed a pair of slacks for some special occasion and she gave him a pair from her son’s closet.” Her reasoning: “After all, you can only wear one pair at a time!”

In her 77 years Amelia has tried to live her life by the example set by her mother and grandmother by donating her time, talent and treasure to worthy causes like Glenmary. As a young teacher in 1959 she received a grant to teach English in Morocco where she spent three years. She returned to her native Massachusetts and spent the following decades teaching French at Barnstable High School on Cape Cod. While working she made sure to support charities both in the United States and abroad and volunteered her time and talents to local charities. And she also made sure to prepare for her retirement years by investing in planned giving opportunities like the annuity she established many years ago.

And retirement came in 1990. She spent the next four years caring for her mother. Following her mother’s death in 1994, she found she had more time to devote to volunteering and because of the income she was now receiving from that long-ago established annuity, she had income that she could share.

She learned of Glenmary’s home mission work through a mailing and was impressed that Glenmary priests, brothers and coworkers worked in the Appalachian region. In 2004, she established an annuity with Glenmary followed by another in 2006 to help support that work. Annuities are a win-win financial investment opportunity. Donors receive interest income for their lifetime; Glenmary receives the portion of the donation that remains at the time of the donor’s death.

“When I see the needs of our world, it just breaks my heart,” she says. And by supporting the work of non-profits like Glenmary through planned giving vehicles like annuities or remembering Glenmary in her will, she can help in some small way.

“I have been blessed in my life,” she says, “and I’d just like to share those blessings with those in need.”

In addition to her charitable giving, Amelia is also active in her community. She is a member of her parish’s funeral choir and the stewardship committee and part of her committee work includes preparing welcome baskets for new parishioners.

She also volunteers with a local Friendly Visitor program where once a week she visits a homebound person who lives alone. And, once a month she volunteers as a driver for a local group that works with those suffering from macular degeneration, a progressive eye condition that causes people to go blind.

“Everyone can do something,” she says, even if it’s offering a prayer for the work of the Glenmary missioners each day. “You don’t have to be millionaires to make charitable giving possible,” she says. “Everyone can be part of something bigger.”

This article originally appeared in the Winter 2007 Planning Ahead Newsletter

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