By Beth Kauffman
Beth and Eric Kauffman began visiting the Field on a regular basis after their two children were born. A gift in their estate plan will help educate and inspire future generations.
Eric and I moved to Chicago right after our wedding and knew almost no one. We loved exploring the city and fell in love with the Field Museum—it was a great place to spend some time on those long winter days! After our children were born, we started visiting the Field on a regular basis. Both of our kids fell in love with Evolving Planet. Many days we would come to the Museum and spend the whole morning in the exhibition and not have time for anything else before nap time. (The kids can still recite the whole script for “How to Become a Fossil.”)
Through our kids’ enthusiasm, we realized how many amazing education programs the Field Museum has created. We are passionate about sharing the Museum with Chicagoland youth and are big advocates of getting kids involved in science from an early age. We are also big fans of the Field’s Women in Science programs and hope that our support will further both of these initiatives.
We first met with an estate planner when our son was born to make sure we had wills in place to provide support for him. As we worked with the estate planner, we realized that it was a natural part of the process to think about our values and organizations that are important to us. We have included the Field Museum in our plans from the beginning and love knowing that young families can plan to support the Field Museum in the future.