Philanthropy: New Year Brings New Goals and New Dreams

Each New Year brings new goals and new dreams. It’s a brand new year and this gives us a new opportunity to show what we are made of. We can show this individually, as a family, and as a community. With that in mind, I think it’s important that we sit down and think about how we can better the areas in which we live. There are so many simple ways that we can make the world and our communities a better place. We live in America and are so blessed to live in a land where we have so much freedom and agency to do what is right.

I am reminded of the natural disasters we experienced in 2017. All in one year, we saw category 4 and category 5 hurricanes hit parts of Texas and Florida. These storms last weeks and did so much damage! Although I am a New York Mets fan, it was encouraging to see the city of Houston rally around the Astros and see them win the championship this year. Again, I tend to cheer for the New York teams, but it was pretty nice to see the team dedicate the team to being Houston Strong and winning it all for the people that had lost their homes and many that were displaced and without power.

Another natural disaster was all the fires along the West Coast. We saw tens of thousands of acres burn throughout Los Angeles and other parts of California. I remember being very impacted by pictures of the 405 and another major freeway in Los Angeles and seeing fire within a hundred feet of one of the largest freeways. We are in interesting times right now and how important is it to have our priorities lined up correctly. I feel like there are so many distractions in life that we often forget the purpose of our lives.

Each day we live is a blessing from the God that created us. One of the biggest ways we can show our gratefulness for all our many blessings is through philanthropy and more specifically giving of our time and our talents. We have all been blessed with time and we all have unique talents. It is important that we selflessly use those talents and make the world a better place. There is a clear connection between happiness and serving others. As we show charity, or a pure love of Christ, to those around the world we ourselves will be blessed. Philanthropy is quite simply how we show our love for all humankind.

With all this, I ask that we do everything possible to make 2018 the year of giving. No matter how we give, we are blessed as we do it. And we are blessing those that we give to. I have not always been this focused on charitable giving and putting others first, but I can tell you that as I have done this, the blessings have flowed upon my life and the lives of those I care about. I look forward to the future in our great city.

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Ryan Van Wagenen is originally from Cottonwood Heights. Upon retirement, he has decided to center his life around charity and philanthropic giving. These posts are written to encourage the community and help everyone realize that anyone and everyone can give of their time and talents. If you have any thoughts or ideas about how we could better the community here in SLC, please contact Ryan and share your thoughts.