A gift that keeps giving

Two hundred and five years! Where did the time go? In a couple of weeks Bacon Academy will celebrate it's 205th birthday with an all class reunion. I graduated xxx years ago and I can tell you that time flies. I am looking forward to the reunion where I will see old friends and meet some new friends.

Bacon Academy first opened in 1803 with $40,000 donated by Pierpont Bacon. What is now known as the "old" Bacon Academy building served as Colchester's high school until the mid-1950s, when the classes were transferred to what has now become the Colchester Intermediate School building. In September of 1993, the construction of the current Bacon Academy building, budgeted at nearly $25 million, was finally completed. There are currently almost 1000 students enrolled at Bacon Academy. I doubt that Mr. Bacon could have ever dreamed what his gift set in motion.

As I thought about my Alma mater, I couldn't help but think about the way our actions today affect the future. When we share God's love, it doesn't end with our actions. It keeps on going. I remember someone coining the phrase "Random acts of kindness" a number of years ago to encourage us to do something positive simply because we could.

You and I can probably testify that someone else's generosity, someone else's good deed changed our lives in some way. That is certainly true for all of us who graduated from Bacon Academy. Pierpoint Bacon's gift opened the doors for us to have a quality education in a private and later public school. Today we are extremely thankful for what he did over two centuries ago.

May we all be as generous and giving when it comes to the way we live. I hope our actions today will bless others and become gifts that keep on giving.

Cal