As a Food & Friends supporter, Kyle Brown invests in our daily mission by donating time and treasure as a volunteer and Red Apron Society member, and now, as Food & Friends newest Legacy Society member. Kyle is well acquainted with the impact a home-delivered meal can have on someone who can’t cook for themselves. For several years, Kyle had been commuting twice a week to Pennsylvania, splitting time with his sister to care for his aging mother. After his long drives north from Upper Marlboro, MD, Kyle was often too tired to cook anything for his mother. Fortunately, she had been receiving hot meals at home from volunteers at a local meal service, “I saw these people were having a big impact on my mom’s life and helping us help her. Those meals really helped out.”
From that experience, Kyle, who is retired from the Office of the Inspector General at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, decided he wanted to spend his extra time giving back to the community. He had seen a billboard that jogged his memory, reminding him of how difficult it was for his mom to get meals when she was sick. He started to look for similar local organizations in 2018, “I came to Food & Friends and looked at their mission, I saw they delivered meals to individuals, too. So, I signed up for the orientation and training as a volunteer delivery driver. And I guess you say the rest is history!”
By now, Kyle has been serving clients on his delivery route in Clinton, MD each Wednesday for nearly six years. He’s grateful, first and foremost, for the immediate impact on the health and well-being of the neighbors he delivers to, “They’re so appreciative of the time that I’m taking out of my day to make sure that they’re doing fine. Someone cares about them enough to ask how they’re doing and to give them the food that they need to help them sustain life a little bit longer.”
Kyle has also discovered how rewarding the relationships he builds with clients can be, “They really look forward to me coming out, and I established a rapport with several of them – and it was all positive. I just got a good sense that I was making an impact, a positive impact on someone’s life by delivering the food and chatting with them for a few minutes.”
Then late last year, Kyle was sidelined from his regular volunteer service by both a hip and shoulder injury. During the extended break from his weekly delivery route, Kyle started thinking about other ways he could give back to Food & Friends and help sustain its mission for the years to come.
Kyle and his wife had received a Food & Friends Personal Estate Planning Kit and they decided to ask their financial planner about updating their own estate plans, “I had always kept in the back of my mind that I wanted to leave something to Food & Friends. I haven’t been able to go out and physically deliver, now is the time!”
Kyle was able use the Personal Estate Planning Kit in an initial consultation with his financial planner and estate planning attorneys, “That booklet was very helpful in answering any questions the estate planning attorney had for us about what assets we have, where do we want them to go, and how do we want them to be distributed.”
The guide that Kyle received from Food & Friends made the entire process simple and easy, “That booklet was a perfect way for me to catalog my assets and determine who I wanted to have what. And it just helped me realize I had more things than I thought I did that I wanted to leave to different people.”
Kyle was also pleased to discover that leaving a planned gift to Food & Friends was accessible to so many people, “It’s just heartwarming to know that you don’t have to be super rich to make a positive impact on someone’s life. I’m doing something for someone else instead of someone doing something for me.”
Kyle and his wife were able to complete their estate plans and create their lasting gift to Food & Friends in just over a week’s time by making Food & Friends a beneficiary of two retirement accounts. He’s grateful to leave a legacy that ensures that neighbors like those he delivers to each week are cared for in the future, “There’s a lot of people out here in the world that are food challenged and don’t get enough nutritious meals. So, Food & Friends does it for free. All I have to do is go out there and spend my time on the roads, spend a little gas to deliver, say ‘hi’, and ask people how they’re doing. It makes me feel wonderful.”
We honor thoughtful and generous friends, like Kyle, who have included Food & Friends in their estate plans as members of our Legacy Society. Legacy gifts are very special commitments because they support both current and future meal deliveries. These forward-thinking gifts help grow our endowment, ensuring that we can continue to serve our neighbors throughout the D.C. region who will need Food & Friends in the years and decades ahead. If you are interested in joining Kyle by including Food & Friends in your estate plans or would like to receive Food & Friends’ Personal Estate Planning Kit, please contact Marilyn Turner, Director of Development, Individual Philanthropy, at (202) 269-6849 or mturner@foodandfriends.org. More information can also be found on our website.