A friend who still does volunteer work with Freecycle mentioned that someone asked a question on the big international moderators’ list. Does the organization have anything set up to honor moderators who die?
The question hadn’t been answered officially yet, so she figured I might know. I could only tell her that I’d never heard of any such thing, but it was possible that they’d put something like that in place since I left.
I did think about it after we signed off, though. There are many thousands of Freecycle moderators all over the world. They are, by definition, people who tend to get involved and give of themselves.
Now that they knew about the situation, what would be an appropriate gesture?
Putting the deceased’s name on the main website seems rather insipid.
My first thought was to find out if there was one book or magazine or something that the person really *believed* in, something she recommended to the whole world, something that made a big difference in her life.
Maybe we could do a central database of recommendations from everyone, kinda like Borders has all those store recommendations from employees?
So if someone passes, as many of us as feel led would get copies of his or her recommendation and release it through BookCrossing or Freecycle or leave it in a waiting room, donate it to a library—something. If it’s a periodical, we donate a subscription to a nearby library or school or assisted living home, that kind of thing.
But since this originally came up regarding a Freecycle moderator, I was still bothered by the idea of “stuff” involved.
So how about living their ideals instead?
If there’s a particular maxim, quote, verse, etc. that was particularly important to that person, and you don’t find it offensive, you could devote a certain amount of time to spreading or living it. You could create something based on it, like a piece of music, an LJ layout, a needlework design—however you express your creativity. You could tell others about it, especially the very young. You could just live it, loudly (but not offensively), memorably, in his honor for a day or a week.
That, I think, would be even better than anything that could ever be done with material goods.
Just a “pay it forward/make a difference” idea for the thinking, but usually somewhat broke crowd 😉
What do you think?
