Each year I look forward to reading the New York Times’ The Lives They Lived, which profiles people who died over the past year. Some are celebrities, of course, but most are “regular” people: the mothers, grandmothers, daughters, bubbies (grandmothers) we lost. They are business leaders, community volunteers, friends. Fathers, brothers, zaydies (grandfathers).

Men of substance. Women of Valor. Each year is filled with good-byes.

But what about hellos? New opportunities? Who did you meet for the first time in 2013? Did you travel somewhere new? How did you help someone?

As part of my work at the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater MetroWest NJ (JCF), I helped to re-stock an elementary school in Union Beach, so kids could return for the 2013-14 school year with fresh school supplies. I went to Federation’s Live From Greater MetroWest, and heard Mandy Patinkin describe his Conservative Jewish Chicago childhood, and how it seemed Orthodox compared to his wife’s Reform upbringing in California.

I spoke to leaders at synagogues, attended educational programs at the Union Y, administered meetings for Hebrew Free Loan of NJ, and visited Newark’s historic Jewish cemeteries. Last year I heard the story of a woman who saved her little brother during the Holocaust, which sparked my daughter’s interest in learning more about her history, her heritage. I did a lot last year.

As someone much wiser than me once said, everyone dies but not everyone lives. So now that it’s 2014, what do you want to do? What memories do you want to create this year? Who do you want to help in 2014? 

What legacy do you want to create? How do you want to be remembered?

In 2014, I look forward to working with donors and their families as they try to answer these questions. We hope that by encouraging people to ask themselves what they really want to do with their time, with their philanthropic resources, with their days, JCF is helping people craft the legacies they want to leave behind.

Happy New Year.

Eileen Heltzer is development officer at Jewish Community Foundation of Greater MetroWest NJ, the planned giving and endowment arm of Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ.

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Originally posted December 31, 2013