1996:
- American Legacies Org, Inc was founded by Franklin T. Wike, Jr.(link is external) when he started interviewing senior citizens and began writing down their life stories and family memories. It originally started out as a labor of love that was privately funded by Mr. Wike.
- With the assistance of multiple volunteer school teachers, willing to interview senior citizens and write stories, he started publishing those stories in monthly booklets.
- He eventually built up a staff of over 50 volunteers from various parts of the U.S.A, willing to assist us in collecting, documenting, editing and proofreading family stories, memories, old family recipes, genealogy information, military stories, old photographs and other important historical data.
2000:
- The next step was to obtain a website, in order to publish the stories and make the information available FREE on the internet, instead of monthly booklets.
2005:
- (pre-covid) American Legacies became partners in a family restaurant that was set up with a special area that was used to "interview" senior citizens, as well as volunteers that were donating their time to "type up the text" from the audio recordings of interviews.
2024:
- American Legacies Org went from being a private enterprise, to a registered 501c3 not-for-profit organization run by a board of directors, instead of a single individual. This transition was made in order to assure the stories collected will continue to be preserved long after any one person is alive.
- We also started conducting video interviews and giving a free copy of the video to the subject or family along with a printed copy of the edited text.
- We held our FIRST FREE CHRISTMAS DINNER and PARTY, just for Senior Citizens that do not have family members close by, to share Christmas Dinner With. This dinner came complete with OLD Christmas Music from the 1950's era and Cash Prizes for the most festive Christmas Outfit and a few free gifts.
2025:
- We started going to Nursing Home type facilities, and conducting interviews of the local residents.
- We sponsored a Free Thanksgiving Meal for seniors that do not have family to celebrate with.
- Our FREE CHRISTMAS DINNER and PARTY, offered a drawing so EVERY PERSON received a FREE GIFT.
2026 Goals:
- We are hoping to start donating booklets to Libraries containing collections of Life Stories from local residents.
- We are adding a special VIDEO project to our Free Christmas Dinner. This will entail making videos of seniors talking about how they celebrated Christmas when they were a child. A free copy of the video, along with a free booklet containing the written text of the content they shared, will be provided to each senior that participates, so they can give it to their family.
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