This 98-year-old secret millionaire offers his fortune to Audubon for wildlife refuge
Around 70 years ago, Russ Gremel spent $1,000 on Walgreens stock. Now he’s giving $2 million dollars to Mother Nature.
Russ Gremel is 98 years old and the epitome of altruism. Seventy years ago, he spent $1,000 to buy stock in a Chicago-based pharmacy chain, Walgreen’s, inspired by his brother saying that people will always need medicine and women will always buy makeup.
He managed to turn $1,000 into $2 million. He was never seduced by the things those money could buy, so he never moved out of the humble brick bungalow where he has lived since he was little.
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He eats oats and stew. “I’m a very simple man,” Gremel told the Tribune. “I never let anybody know I had that kind of money.”
But his secret is out now, due to his generous donation to the Illinois Audubon Society, which is using the money to help establish a 395-acre wildlife refuge in Lee County, according to Tree Hugger.
“It’s incredibly generous,” Jim Herkert, the executive director of the society, said of the donation. “It’s allowing us to protect a really valuable and important piece of property and fulfill one of Russ’ wishes that we could find a place where people could come out and experience and enjoy nature the way he did as a kid.”
Gremel is happy that he can see the fruits of his generosity while he is still alive. “Why not give it to them now, when I have the pleasure and enjoyment of seeing it,” he said.
The refuge is called the Gremel Wildlife Sanctuarym a Legacy Project of the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation. It is home to over 170 species of birds, as well as rare turtles and many other creatures.
This way, people will get to see what Illinois looked like before most of the people arrived. “You have to do some good in this world,” Gremel said. “That’s what money is for.”
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