By Nicholas J. Vendikos
Director of Development
Like all teenagers, my 14-year-old twins know it all. Or, at least, they think they do.
During a recent family dinner, they took great joy in teasing me. When the laughter stopped, they told me that I am going through a midlife crisis.
Between complaints about my gray beard, inability to lose weight and my over-the-top gripes about aches and pains, my kids were hysterical.
I did my best to tell them that while they are excited to be teenagers in high school who now “know everything,” it felt like yesterday that my wife, Ismini, and I were celebrating their first Holy Communion.
As parents, we do our best to provide for their current and future needs. We worry … worry and worry some more. So we do our best to prepare. We invest in their Catholic education and try our best to save for their future.
Life just goes too fast.
They got me to reminisce about my Mom, who passed away three years ago, and to start to think about getting my proverbial house in order. I never thought about me not being around; nor did I ever think she would be gone. So I began to ask questions about drawing up a will to assist my family should something happen to me.
That led me to think about Futures In Education. Our many supporters have not only provided for their families via annual support, but have also contributed to causes and charities dear to them with incredibly generous planned gifts.
Many of you are generous annual supporters of Futures through various channels, including our Annual Scholarship Dinner, Golf Outing or Christmas Concert. Others choose to support programs like our Be An Angel to a Student or Adopt-A-School initiatives.
Others have taken their support further and have become members of the Fons Vitae Society, the Diocese of Brooklyn’s planned giving organization. The Fons Vitae Society provides an opportunity for our friends and supporters to take their place beside their ancestors and to leave their mark in our Diocese. It is one way for us, like Brooklyn and Queens-area Catholics of yesterday, to contribute to this great Church for generations to come.
The Society acknowledges the many members and friends of the Diocese of Brooklyn for their intention to remember the Diocese, its parishes, schools, and special ministries or a combination, in their estate plans.
Those individuals have determined that their annual investments in Futures and our Catholic school students in Brooklyn and Queens should not end when they pass away, but, instead, they have left a legacy gift to Futures via a Will, a life insurance gift or other planned giving vehicles.
I hope you will call me in the near future with interest in becoming a member of the Fons Vitae Society benefitting Futures In Education.
For more information please do not hesitate contacting me at nvendikos@cfbq.org or by calling 718-965-7308.
P.S. If you have already left Futures in your estate planning, please let me know. You deserve to be recognized for your legacy gift and not be a secret admirer.