Legacy Begins in Childhood: Reimagining Service, Leadership, and the Communities Our Children Will Inherit
- Feb 13
- 3 min read
By Raquel Whiting Gilmer
Founder & CEO, Perfectly Me
When people talk about legacy, they often think in terms of accomplishments made over a lifetime. A career or awards won. A reputation that endures long after you’re gone.
For me, legacy is something deeper. It's the values we plant in children long before they become adults. It's the belief that who they are has the power to shape the world around them.
My legacy isn't a single achievement. It's a movement, one child at a time, toward a more compassionate, courageous, community-minded generation.
I came to this work through the lessons passed down from my great-grandmother that no matter how little we have, we always have something to give. Service and community were paramount for me as a child despite our limited financial resources. This became the seed of Perfectly Me, the mission-driven company I founded to help children build the values I wish someone had helped me build and nurture when I was young.
What started as programming for camps and clubs to instill these values, has become something bigger. We're cultivating the next generation of citizens. Children who understand kindness as a civic skill, empathy as a responsibility, and service as part of their identity.
The turning point that reshaped how I lead came from my own son, Mikey. When he was six, we were walking by a local park and he noticed trash on the ground. He didn't complain. He simply said, "There aren't enough trash cans."
For him, this wasn't just an observation. It was the beginning of a plan.
He organized a cleanup. He recruited friends. He asked neighbors for help. What began as one child's idea grew into a six-year operation that now has a 30-person community effort supported by local partners. As his mother, I had to make a choice: treat this as a cute childhood moment, or honor it as the early formation of citizenship. I chose the latter. That choice changed me.
Mikey's story reminded me that children are naturally wired for impact. They just need adults who are willing to pause and support. Parents often talk about raising leaders, but leadership is formed in the small moments when a child notices a problem and an adult helps them believe they can be part of the solution.
This is why I believe it's time to reconsider the concept of "community service requirements." For too long, service has been something we require children to log rather than something we help them embody. Hours don't change culture. Identity does.
At Perfectly Me, we don't count hours. We cultivate values. We create programs and experiences where children practice courage, kindness, leadership, and community commitment until those behaviors become part of who they are.
That shift, from compliance to identity, is the heart of my leadership philosophy, which rests on a few simple principles:
1. Identity before action.
People act in alignment with who they believe themselves to be. When children see themselves as contributors and problem-solvers, their actions naturally follow.
2. Service is learned through experience, not instruction.
No worksheet can teach empathy. No policy can create compassion. Children learn values by living them.
3. Community is built, not assumed.
Teaching our children how to create community, not just exist within it, is a leadership skill we cannot afford to overlook in today’s culture.
4. Legacy is not what we leave behind. It’s what we build into others.
Every child who discovers their courage, strengthens their empathy, or leads a moment of community connection becomes a living extension of our legacy.
My hope is that when people look back on my work, they don’t see camps and programs. I want them to see a generation of children who grew up believing they mattered, and who made the world better because of it.
That is the legacy I am building. And it begins in childhood.
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