FINDING MEANING IN LIFE
One person CAN make a difference in this world. Darcy Creech, a remarkable woman, believes philanthropy is a "lifestyle"
I first discovered Darcy Creech when I went looking for a hat. I fell in love with her store, Peter Beaton, and the story behind it. Then I noticed on her website that there were some philanthropic adventures and that made me curious. I did a little digging and "chapter two" of her life is equally as fascinating as the first.
When newly divorced Darcy, and her two year old son Peter moved to Nantucket and opened a hat shop, the budding success she had already been experiencing ballooned. She was the "toast of the town."
Once destitute, she now was more than solvent. She married again and gave birth to a second son. When that marriage failed she began a whirlwind social life, trying to fill the whole inside herself that was formed by two failed marriages and an abusive childhood.
"But I had no joy.”
“I tried to anesthetize myself with another season of parties. One summer night, after coming home from a fundraiser, I sat on the staircase in my floor-length dress and wept.”
“I thought, I’m either going to kill myself, or I’m going to surrender my life to God.”Surrender she did.
She continues...
"I’d always been interested in philanthropy, but I thought I had to make a bazillion dollars before I could do it. But $38 a month? I can do this. I can catapult someone out of poverty"
She became sponsor to two children, Patrick in Kenya and Witness in Tanzania. In January 2011, she traveled to Tanzania to see life there firsthand.
On her trip she discovered that people in the village walk 2.4 miles everyday to get water from a swamp. Water that makes them sick.
Upon her return she attended a world crisis conference and learned that all the worlds water problems could be solved with $20 billion, less than half of the $50 billion Americans spend shopping on "Black Friday"
Very familiar with consumerism, she went to work developing products. Her first item, a watch priced at $500.00 garnered $44,000. in 30 days. 100% of the money went to building water wells in Tanzania where contaminated water is killing 5000 children a day. Her efforts are ongoing with her foundation Hydrex Philanthropy.
Darcy Creech is a truly remarkable woman of a certain age.
“I get more back by giving than my sponsored kids could ever imagine. Giving is not a one-time thing, it’s a lifestyle,”
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