Ruth Wood’s century of generosity ensures students have the support they need to learn, belong and thrive.
At 103, Ruth Wood of Eureka Springs still remembers the day a teacher changed her life.
“When I was in college, I didn’t have any money,” Wood recalled. “A teacher loaned me some, and when I went back later to pay her, she said, ‘No, don’t pay me back. Just do something for somebody else.’”
That simple lesson, to pass it on, has guided Wood’s giving for more than eight decades.
Today, her generosity is focused on students in the three school districts in Carroll County. Through her fund at the Community Foundation, she has supported everything from field trip fees and epi-pens to the steel-toed work boots required for students in the county’s vo-tech program and even hearing aids for a child in need. Her philosophy is simple: fill the gaps that no other resource covers, especially when a small gift makes a life-changing difference.
“I don’t want kids to be left out,” she said. “If you’re the only child who can’t go on a field trip, that hurts. I want them included.”
One of her earliest grants helped a boy travel to see his brother in the hospital in central Arkansas. “That made me feel better than almost anything,” she said. Another time, she quietly gave money to a teacher so a student could join the class on a field trip. Later, the child’s grandfather showed up at the school with a crumpled $5 bill to say thank you. “That was probably his last five dollars,” Wood remembered. “It meant so much that he wanted to give back.”
Stories like these echo her own experiences growing up during the Depression. “We just didn’t have anything, like most during that time,” she said. “People needed things, and you helped each other. My mother always said, ‘You do what you have to do.’ So that’s what I do.”
Wood’s giving reflects her lifelong focus on education and health, with a touch of travel for good measure.
“I think if you teach kids, they can do anything they want to do, but be reasonable,” she said. “You don’t have to be the best. Enjoy life and experience as much as you can, travel as much as you can, read as much as you can.”
Her fund ensures those values will outlive her. When she is gone, her endowment will continue to support children in Carroll County for generations to come. She isn’t concerned with specifying every detail. Instead, she wants her fund to be flexible so that it can meet whatever needs arise.
“I can’t say exactly where it should go, because it’s whatever’s needed,” she said. “And you never know what will be needed.”
For Wood, that is the legacy she hopes to leave: not only direct help for young people today, but an example of generosity that inspires others to act. “I hope it will teach them to give to others,” she said. “There’s always need.”
Her story comes full circle because a teacher once asked her to pay it forward. Now, more than 80 years later, she is still doing exactly that.