You might say Lee Jones Lance (53C) has a knack for being ahead of the crowd.
When she enrolled at Berry in 1949, she became the first of her family to attend college. Four years later, she joined the ranks of pioneering women across the nation entering the business world, proudly taking her place alongside attorney colleagues pursuing justice for their clients.
It's no surprise, then, that Mrs. Lance would be at the forefront of a new way to support Berry students that also provides her with a lifetime income. In fact, she is the first Berry graduate to use money from her IRA to fund a charitable gift annuity for Berry.
Thanks to a provision in the 2023 SECURE 2.0 Act, donors who are at least 70 ½ can make a once-in-a-lifetime contribution of up to $53,000 directly from their IRA in exchange for one or more CGAs. This qualified charitable distribution (QCD) is counted against the donor's annual QCD limit, which in 2024 is $105,000.
A life-changing question
As a high school student in Lake Wales, Florida, Mrs. Lance had never even heard of Berry College. Then one day her geometry teacher posed a question that had nothing to do with math.
"She asked if I'd given any thought to going to college," Mrs. Lance recalled. "I told her I'd love to, but there was no way for me to go. My family was poor, and it was simply out of the question. That's when she told me about a college where I could work my way through, and she asked if I'd be interested."
A few months later, Mrs. Lance was boarding a bus for a 24-hour journey to Mount Berry, Ga.
"That bus stopped in every little town along the way," she said, chuckling. "My ticket was five feet long! At each stop, the driver would tear off a piece."
On arriving at Berry, Lee began working in the laundry to earn her tuition. Other work assignments followed, taking her to the cleaning crew, the sewing room and finally to an office where she honed business skills she would use throughout her life.
A fateful meeting
While many students returned home for Christmas, Lee stayed on campus, working in the dining hall serving others who'd also stayed to earn tuition for the following quarter. One day, after cleaning up, the girls were invited to go outside and sing Christmas carols with the boys.
"We were in hog's heaven," she remembered. "I walked up to where the group was gathered and grabbed two hands. After the first few songs, a guy on my left said, 'I sat at your table.' I said, 'So?' He [Emmett Lance (52c)] asked if he could call on me on Sunday afternoon, and I agreed. He brought me a box of chocolates. My first thought was, 'This guy must be rich!' Our courtship went on from there."
The Lances had been married for 53 years at his death in 2006.
Making lemonade from lemons
The Korean War cut short Mr. Lance's dream of a college education, but the young woman who would become his wife continued at Berry. He was sent to Korea and later stationed in Miami. Following his discharge from the service, he and the now Mrs. Lance moved back to Georgia, where he earned a degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Jobs for both the Lances followed in Alabama, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Florida. Along the way, Mrs. Lance worked for a company that required her to buy an IRA she neither wanted nor was allowed to invest as she saw fit.
"It was a nightmare," Mrs. Lance said. "This IRA was earning less and less each year, and I still had to pay taxes on it! I had wanted to get rid of it for so long, then when Helen mentioned the new legislation, it just made sense to get rid of it. And I'm so glad I did. I'm helping Berry students and earning a better return on my CGA than I did on the IRA."
Ultimately, when Mrs. Lance's unrestricted gift matures, it will go to support Berry's greatest need.
For information
about how you can use your IRA to fund an income producing CGA that also helps
Berry students, contact Helen Lansing, senior planned giving officer, at 706.378.2867
or hlansing@berry.edu.
