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The milllion dollar question
Taking our cue from the Barenaked Ladies, we posed an interesting question to our contributing writers this week. If they had a windfall of a million dollars for gifts this Christmas season, how would they spend it? The only limitation we placed was that they couldn’t lavish the wee fortune (and admittedly, a million bucks isn’t what it used to be) on themselves, their spouses or kids (or in the cases of several, their parents). Their proposals are, predictably, of a bewildering variety.
Some, like Nancy Melcher or Jennifer Carroll, didn’t stray too far from their inner circles, dedicating large parts of the money to siblings or close friends. Some, like Amy Hurlburt or Sean Wetselaar, went international. Some, like Harry Stemp or Fly Freeman, would create ongoing funds with the money. Lisha Cassibo wants to divvy the million into 365 equal amounts, indulging in a random act of kindness each and every day for a year.
We sympathize mostly with those, like Shelagh Damus or Bev Northeast, who suggest using the money as an incentive for local business. And considering the recent focus on tourism in this space, we don’t imagine that you’ll be surprised to find that of all the generous suggestions in this issue, the one we most enthusiastically endorse is that of Stan Taylor, our science writer, on page 19.
Stan proposes that the million be equally divided among four cornerstone insitutions in our community: the Lucy Maud Montgomery Society, the Historical Society (which is the fundraising support for the museum), the Music Hall and the Cottage Hospital. We loudly agree with the first two, but we think the Music Hall and the Hospital have plenty of other regular funding sources; they don’t need our money. We would replace them with the Foster Memorial Committee and the York-Durham Heritage Railway, partly to care for their buildings or other assets, but mostly to develop and carry out marketing plans, which can be very expensive indeed.
However you would spend your million, we hope you enjoy our writers’ creative ideas on the subject. Have a wonderful holiday, and we look forward to bringing you more of their fascinating writing in 2012.
July 14, 2011
