Franks: Chocolate pudding, long drives, and a legacy of giving

Published 5:10 am Sunday, July 27, 2025

At this year’s family reunion, I learned something new about my dad. When he came home on military leave, he used to pay his younger siblings a nickel for their chocolate pudding. He was the oldest of nine, so I imagine there was just as much opportunity for him to buy one of his favorite desserts as there was for his siblings to pocket a few nickels. Either way, it’s a story that stuck with me.

I was raised on chocolate pudding — the stovetop kind my mother cooled in a water bath in the kitchen sink. To this day, a bowl of warm, creamy pudding is a comforting memory. But this year’s reunion gave me more than a nostalgic taste; it gave me a reminder about the importance of family, connection, and the stories we pass on.

At 93, my father hadn’t made the trip in a few years. Getting him 680 miles across Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri to the reunion took coordination — and a bit of creativity. After many family calls and texts, we settled on a tag-team effort: a cross-state, multi-driver relay to get him there safely and comfortably.

We arrived Friday night, warmed up some leftovers from the earlier meal, and settled in. One of the first things we noticed was who wasn’t there — Dad’s brother, who had never missed a reunion but couldn’t attend this year due to Alzheimer’s. His children and grandchildren came, but his voice, his laugh, and his legendary storytelling were painfully absent.

By Saturday, nearly seventy family members had gathered. Some had grown wider or thinner, teenagers were now adults, toddlers were taller, and a few new faces stirred the pot of our ever-growing family soup.

The room buzzed with old and new stories. My aunt Fran recalled a time when my mother was horrified to find five-year-old me wrestling my three-year-old brother to the ground in front of relatives. While such scuffles weren’t unusual, they weren’t intended for family viewing. The laughter was loud, the hugs plentiful, and the stories rich with connection.

But amid the joy, I found myself wondering about something else.

Looking around at the younger generation — my cousins’ children and grandchildren — I asked myself: What are they learning about giving? Who’s teaching them? Are their parents and grandparents involving them in giving decisions or volunteering together as a family?

The 2023 Bank of America Study of Philanthropy: Charitable Giving by Affluent Households reported that only 16.5 percent of affluent households involve younger relatives in giving decisions. And a surprising 78.8 percent don’t involve other generations at all.

That statistic hit close to home. While my extended family is solidly middle-class, we’re much like those surveyed — generous and community-minded, yet not always intentional about passing on the practice of giving.

Many families gather once a year — if that. My grandmother had nine children, and at our reunions, we now see four, sometimes five generations represented. Photos capture the growth of this legacy, but it’s the stories that keep the legacy alive.

Have you ever been to a reunion without stories? I haven’t. Whether its uncles teasing each other with tales from childhood or cousins catching up on life, stories are the thread that holds generations together. What matters to Uncle Sonny or Aunt Frances changes me just a little. And those small changes build the bridge between generations.

That’s where giving fits in. Sharing stories about giving — why we give, what matters to us, who we help — creates a culture of generosity. It teaches children that giving isn’t something you do alone or later in life; it’s something you do with others, and it starts now.

Even if you’re not attending a reunion this summer, your children and grandchildren may be visiting. Use those moments to talk about giving. Invite them to help choose a nonprofit to support, pack food boxes, or gather gently used clothes for a local shelter. Let them see that giving is more than writing a check — it’s an act of family, of connection, of legacy.

Philanthropy worth doing is worth doing together.

So, what are you doing this summer to grow generosity in your family? Whether you’re gathered under one roof or spread across miles, find a way to involve children and grandchildren in a shared experience of giving. Make memories. Plant seeds of generosity.

And maybe — just maybe — serve a little chocolate pudding along the way.

— Dawn Franks Strategic Solutions provides coaching, planning, and advising services to families, businesses, foundations, and nonprofits to maximize impact and enhance giving. She is the author of The Gift of Giving, available for Kindle on Amazon, and the e-book Giving Fingerprints, available at dawnfranks.com. Contact her at dawn@dawnfranks.com