What will we leave as our community legacy?

Once again, like a friendly ghost, the legacy of Peyton Anderson, former owner and publisher of this newspaper, reached out on what would have been the week of his 110th birthday and set his sights on another target for his philanthropy. This time it’s a new $500,000 grant program for teachers titled, “Teach to Inspire.”

Classroom educators in Bibb County can apply for grants from as little as $250 to as much as $10,000 to implement innovative ideas to inspire students. The grant program invites teachers to “Go beyond and to take the education in their classrooms to a different level.” The grants will be award in July and implemented in the 2017-18 school year.

This is not the first time Peyton Anderson’s legacy has reached out to help educators and those being educated. Through the foundation that carries his name — formed the year after his death in 1989 — Anderson’s legacy continues to give.

There is hardly a educational institution in the Middle Georgia area that has not benefited from funds left by Anderson for the betterment of the community — and generally — with little or no fanfare.

But the evidence is everywhere from the bricks and mortar of the Peyton Anderson Community Services Building to the Douglass Theatre and Tubman African American Museum to the Ocmulgee Heritage Trail. To programs such as the Peyton Anderson Scholars that, since its inception in 2009, has given millions of dollars in scholarship money to some of the area’s finest students.

The Peyton Anderson Foundation seeded the Community Foundation and NewTown Macon, both organizations — and so many others touched by his legacy — have helped make our community better and continues to do so.

What does Anderson’s legacy say to each of us? No, we don’t own newspapers and most of us can’t seed a foundation that’s only raison d’etre is to make this community a more prosperous place to live for everyone. However, we all play a part in this community’s future.

What legacy will we leave?

Will we support teachers in our school system so the next generation of Middle Georgians are more educated and ready for jobs that haven’t yet been imagined? Will we do the simple things such such as taking an anti-litter vow or walking around our neighborhoods once a week to pick up trash?

Will we design our future roads and highways with sidewalks and bike paths? Will we agree to stay neighborly, even when we have disagreements? Can we fight back the negative urge to retreat to our separate tribes and instead, open our tents for debate and discussion?

Can we help create the kind of legacy for this community money can only help, but can’t buy? That’s what Peyton Anderson meant when he told the trustees of his foundation how to spend his money. Give it to, “good doers,” not “do gooders.”

This story was originally published April 15, 2017 at 9:00 PM with the headline "What will we leave as our community legacy?."