January has a familiar rhythm. The decorations get packed away, the tree comes down, our calendar is blank again, and the pace - if only briefly - slows. In that quieter space, before the year gathers momentum again, there is room for a different kind of thinking. Not about targets or resolutions but about meaning.
Legacy is often spoken about as something distant or lofty, as though it belongs only to history books or future generations. Yet our own legacy is being shaped every day, whether we are conscious of it or not. It lives in the choices we make, the causes we stand behind, and the way we care for one another when no one else is watching.
We rarely pause however to consider how much of our daily lives are shaped by people who once stood exactly where we are now - at the beginning of a year, uncertain of what lay ahead.
Legacy, is deeply hopeful. It asks us to think beyond our own lifetime, to act in service of people we may never meet, and to believe that what we do today matters tomorrow.
As a new year begins, it is worth asking ourselves what kind of impact we wish to have in the year ahead. Not in terms of success or status, but in how our actions might ripple forward. What will remain because we were here? What will be stronger, kinder or more resilient because of us?
Geelong’s story is rich with people who asked these very questions long before us. I often wonder when it was that people like Reverend Andrew Love, Dr Mary De Garis and the McKellar sisters once sat - perhaps quietly, perhaps uncertainly - and considered the legacy they might leave. Did they know what they were setting in motion? Did they imagine that their vision would continue to support families, patients and communities generations later?
Perhaps they did not see legacy as something grand or fixed, but simply as doing the right thing in their time, for the people around them.
All these years on, their legacy continues to support future generations - often in ways they could never have possibly fully imagined.
As this year unfolds, perhaps the most powerful question we can ask ourselves is not what we plan to do next, but this: when the years pass and others look back, what will my legacy look like - and who will it be there to support?
At the Barwon Health Foundation, we welcome the opportunity in 2026 to sit with you, to listen, and to help shape the legacy you wish to leave behind - for your family, for our community, and for the health of generations who will call Geelong home long after us.
Zoe Waters
Executive Director
Barwon Health Foundation
