Many have asked…what did you do before you started the Linden Pay It Forward Project? I can’t help but laugh as I keep reinventing myself and, even I, am not sure what venue to reference as a starting point.

With a couple of failed marriages under my belt I had to make the best of some unfortunate choices. It required me to forge new relationships, explore potential business opportunities and continually find ways to graft myself into a community new to me. The more I integrated with my community, the more they embraced me and my daughter; that community was Linden.

I am convinced that what might make me different than some is my determination to NOT allow failures to become my life’s game board. There are no ‘go back five spaces’ or ‘return to start’ cards in my draw pile. I refuse to go backwards and if I do have to start over it’s going to be right where I am.

There are a few ‘chance’ cards in the pile but life without a few risks is uninteresting. The Pay It Forward Project was one of my ‘chance’ cards.

Why do I share this?

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When my grand kids were younger, I picked up a board game from a second-hand shop to re-purpose into something they could call our own. We renamed it Galaxy Quest and together created a new box cover, mapped out a playing board, revamped the spinner and made game pawns.

The grand kids established the rules, challenges, risks and consequences that would happen when landing on certain board spaces. In playing the game they learned a losing position on the game board could change at any given moment and you could be a winner if you continued on. It became a favorite family game through the years.

While working on this project, my grand kids discovered that something that no longer served a purpose to someone else and deemed second-hand, still had plenty of usefulness and purpose if someone choose to see the potential. The same is true of mankind.

We all have a God-given purpose. If you see your life as used, second-hand and beyond salvageable, think again. Perhaps you need to reinvent a new playing board where you establish the rules, create the playing cards and determine the start and finish lines based on your worth.

With the help of my 11-year old grandson, Fischer, we hope to design a Linden Pay It Forward board game to be played at local indoor and outdoor events in our community. My desire is design something the size of a ‘Twister’ floor game though smaller version made from second-hand board games is an option and necessary to develop a prototype.

With that said, I am sending a shout out to Linden Cub Scout troops and other Linden school groups that might want to help with the planning and development of this fun project. The only requirement is COMMITMENT from start to finish.