Rita Poe

Here’s a story that I can’t stop thinking about. Nancy Zingheim, the manager at an RV park in Washington State, didn’t know Rita Poe very well. Rita was a resident of the RV Park in the summer of 2015, and they spoke when she came by to pay the rent. But in September of that year, Rita Poe asked Nancy if she would be the executor of her Will, and Nancy agreed.

A few weeks later, Rita Poe died, leaving her estate (which totaled nearly $800,000) to support eight national wildlife refuges and four other parks across the Western United States. Before Nancy wrote the checks from the estate, she set out to visit each park.

On that trip, she traveled for nine days, covering more than 4,000  miles, and visited six national wildlife refuges in California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

Reflecting on her experience, she said that in the process of carrying out Poe’s wishes she’d been granted her own gift.  By visiting the refugees, Nancy said, “I saw things that I would never have seen…I didn’t know a national wildlife reserve even existed. I don’t think a lot of people out there know about them. They should. They’re wonderful places.” 

Here’s a gift that will benefit essential open spaces for many years. Here’s a gift that also changed the life of the woman tasked with carrying it out. Here’s a gift made from a person who asked for no recognition and used her legacy to support the animals and open spaces that she deeply loved.

How has a gift from someone you know, or don’t know, changed your relationship to nature? Was it a camping trip taken long ago with a beloved grandparent? Was it a botanical garden endowed by a gift from a local benefactor? Was it open land protected by the environmental advocacy of those now gone?