Why should you give to the Bryant Neighborhood Center? This series of posts explores why the people connected with the Bryant Neighborhood Center and the Here for Good Capital Campaign invest in its future success.

Chuck Kleeberg attends Trinity Presbyterian Church and has served as part of the Capital Campaign team for several years. Last fall, he started volunteering with TAP, the Trinity Afterschool Program, providing literacy assistance to first and second graders. Read on to learn about his experience and why it motivates him to give to the Bryant Neighborhood Center.

I like to think that my motivations are pure.

My right brain, for instance, tells me that I am most motivated by things that give me a sense of purpose. Donating to and volunteering at the BNC have certainly done that for me. Each of the programs is aspirational at its core. I feel like I am part of something bigger than myself.

My left brain, an empiricist, tells me that outcomes are what most motivate. I have no doubt that the various programs of the BNC have helped individuals. I’ve heard from some of them. As tiny as my part is of that, my left brain tells me to think of the Grand Canyon. A drop followed by others over time can radically change landscapes.

But when I am completely honest, I know the major motivators in my life reside in a darker place. I am driven most by greed, guilt and fear.

My wife volunteered me for the free medical clinic board twenty years ago. Out of fear of disappointing her, I joined up.

Guilt drove me to be a volunteer tutor with the TAP program. Rachel Boisen, the administrator of the program, said that over two thirds of the children who cannot read at a third grade level at the end of third grade fail to finish high school. How could I be part of that failure by failing to act? I joined up.

But greed has kept me in the programs.

My TAP protégé Charlie, for example, was a first grader who allowed me each week, for the hour we were together, to see the world anew.

One day, he asked me as he left what I knew about axolotls. I had some vague ideas. When next we met, I knew as much as my grey matter could hold about the wondrous salamanders with the best regenerative powers on the planet. An axolotl can lose a leg and grow another back identical to the one lost in a few weeks. They easily adapt to transplanted parts. They can even regrow brain cells, something I wish for daily.

Another time we talked about the amazing abilities of octopi… their eyesight, their camouflaging color, their beaks and their intelligence. And many times we talked about birds, because Charlie is a self-described “bird nerd.”

Where else could I go and marvel about such things with pure joy?

We marveled together at other things.

We were reading a book that contained a character named Anna. I noted that some words read backwards the same as forwards. They are called palindromes. I gave some examples and asked Charlie if he could think of any. “Poop,” he said without hesitation. While not certain this was his brilliant example or his commentary on my sidebar, I was amazed either way at how sharp he was.

At some point during our 30 or so meetings, I realized that I was getting much more out of our relationship than he ever could.

That’s the thing about donating or volunteering. It is the most selfish selfless thing one can do. The more I do it, the more I want to do it.

I support the BNC out of greed.

I hope you get greedy too.

If you, like Chuck, want to feel selfish selflessness, click here to give to the Bryant Neighborhood Center. Alternatively, if you’d like to volunteer with TAP, contact Rachel to be on the fall tutor list.

My Case for the BNC: Selfish Greed