In August, the non‑profit board met to vote on microgrants for experiential learning. I proposed a pilot: three $2,500 travel grants for first‑gen college students to study abroad for two weeks with the stipulation that they bring back one story and one skill we could teach the next cohort. I named the program The Diane Fund. The motion passed with no dissent. After the meeting, I stood in the empty room and let the tears come the way rain comes in late summer—hard and fast and over.
That night I wrote the first three checks. I wrote the same note in each card.
“I couldn’t get to Europe when I was your age. I sent someone else. This time, I’m sending you. Bring us back something beautiful and something useful. Often, they’re the same.”
A week later, a photo arrived: a girl named Yael standing under a sky in Lisbon so blue it felt like a freshwater lake, holding a notebook with the words “RISK ≠ RECKLESS” on the cover. She’d designed a budgeting template that translated euros to dollars and back again and included a column called “feelings about this purchase.” She wrote, “I didn’t know you could put feelings on a spreadsheet. Turns out you can. They’re cheaper when you see them.”