Nonprofit Organization in the Works to Honor Local Family's Lost Son

It was in a moment of clarity, amid the heavy sadness of the circumstances, that the purpose of ReesSpecht Life was born.

Rich Specht was asked to say a few words at the memorial service for the 22-month-old son he had just lost in a tragic accident in their Sound Beach backyard on Oct. 27, 2012. "I just looked at everyone and said, 'Do something right by each other, and do something for each other,'" he said.

A friend suggested Rich and his wife Samantha start a foundation in their son's memory, an idea they immediately liked. They decided the goal of the foundation would be to "remind people the importance of community, compassion and civility."

Hurricane Sandy hit just days later, and all around them, Rich and Samantha Specht – who had been planning their son's memorial service through the resulting 11-day power outage, with very little capacity for communication – experienced an outpouring of support for their family.

But something was troubling them.

"Why is it only under these circumstances that people do this?" Rich Specht asked. "It shouldn’t be the exception, it should be the rule. I knew there was a time when community came first. We're just trying to bring that back and re-set the compass a little bit."

The couple made a Facebook page for their foundation, which they'd name "ReesSpecht Life" after their son Rees, whose full name was Richard Edwin-Ehmer Specht. They printed up business-card-sized "ReesSpecht Life" cards that they handed out and hoped would inspire people to not just complete random acts of kindness but to pay it forward, too. Their daughters Lorelei and Abigail took a photo to put on Facebook asking for people to "Like" the page in support of ReesSpecht Life.

They also tested their theory.

One afternoon, they ordered drinks through the local drive-through Dunkin' Donuts, and paid not only for their own drinks but also for the drinks of the person in the car behind them, handing the cashier a single ReesSpecht Life card to give to the next person. The gesture started a chain reaction – in which people paid for the beverage ordered by the person in the car behind them – that Rich and Samantha Specht were later told lasted nearly all morning.

Samantha Specht said they were floored by that revelation, though she clarified that the original intent wasn't to set in motion a monetary favor such as the purchasing of coffee. "Just do a nice thing for somebody. It doesn’t have to be monetary," she said.

They are currently in the process of incorporating it and obtaining nonprofit status as a registered 501(c)3 organization. Rich Specht admits he may have gotten a little ahead of himself: people began expressing an interest in making donations, but they had no way to collect them. The Smithtown Teachers Association – an organization in which both Rich and Samantha Specht are members, as teachers in the Smithtown School District – stepped up to hold donations in trust for ReesSpecht Life until it could fully finish the lengthy process of becoming a nonprofit organization.

Eventually, ReesSpecht Life will award scholarships to one senior each at Smithtown East and Smithtown West high schools; a similar scholarship is in development in the Sachem School District, where Samantha Specht has close friends. And Rich Specht, a self-described big dreamer, has exactly that for the foundation: "What I want is to be a foundation that’s about recognizing people in the community who are doing these things and then performing an act of kindness for them."

He continued: "Ideally, I’d love to shift the social norm back to people thinking of each other again. We’re programmed that way. You need this, you need that. Really what we need is each other and that’s the one thing that gets left out of the whole equation."

As part of the Specht family's own equation, putting together the foundation has helped in the healing process.

"I think because we were so focused on his loss," Samantha Specht said, "that any suggestions of healing that we throw our energy into has been really healthy."

How to Get Involved: Attend an April 5 fundraiser at Napper Tandy's in Smithtown, where ReesSpecht Life will be raffling off prizes including an iPad mini, a Kindle, and a TV. Visit ReesSpechtLife.com for more information.