Our founder: Becky Frank
As she shared about different aspects of life back then raising a family,
I would often ask, “How did you do it?” She would always reply,
“Well, you just had to learn how to stretch a nickel.”
I grew up hearing my maternal grandmother (who had Scottish heritage) share stories of the Great Depression and what it really took to survive in those days, especially with three young daughters. As she shared about different aspects of life back then raising a family, I would often ask, “How did you do it?” She would always reply, “Well, you just had to learn how to stretch a nickel.”
On our last visit with her before we left to live in the Middle East I gave her a nickel as I kissed her goodbye and said, ‘Now you stretch that for me till I come back, ok.’ I never fully understood that phrase until she died. Her entire life she had sown into so many lives in a variety of ways. However, when she died, she blessed 3 generations financially, and it was at that point that I realised the key to ‘stretching a nickel’ was……..GIVING!
When I was back for a visit my aunt said, ‘I found something in mother’s coat pocket that belongs to you.’ She handed me an envelope and written on the outside in my grandmother’s handwriting were the words ‘Becky’s stretched nickel’; that ‘stretched nickel’ has become a legacy.
Then I moved to Scotland with my family and soon discovered the £2 coin with the inscription around its edge, “Standing on the shoulders of giants”. I was once again ‘stretched’ by the reminder of not only those who had come before me, but the challenge of what difference would I make for those that would come after me…
BE THE HAND!
Becky Frank
Founder, Stretch a Nickel