Dreams for Kids

I met Generosity on a street in Burlington, Vermont.

Generosity is poor. Generosity is rich. Generosity is black. Generosity is white. Generosity is not racist, ageist, sexist, classist, or elitist. Generosity welcomes any kind soul into its realm and returns to it a gracious thank you in the unified harmony of the world’s community.

On a literal level, the tolerance that Generosity demonstrates is unequivocal. A dollar donated to provide a month of clean water for a child in Africa is just as uniquely appreciated if it comes from a minimum-wage day-laborer, as it is if it comes from Bono. In few other fields is such unambiguous tolerance found. Even our deluded visions of generosity can skew our perceptions of its tolerance. Our ideas, well intentioned as they are, such as “I am a generous one because I can help” and “They need help”, give way to the idea that those who we believe to be in need of help cannot, or will not be generous. I am fortunate enough to be from a family that has provided me with everything that I could need, from a good education to good food to good opportunities to participate in community service. Seeing others in need, I was excited to help try to bring them some of the same joy in life that I had in mine. I gave my time, resources, and summers to help children, but I hadn’t met Generosity yet.

I met Generosity on a street in Burlington, Vermont.

The moments are hard to come by where you learn so much in a minute or two that you walk away a different person than you were less than a hundred seconds ago. Meeting Generosity was one of those moments.

I was sitting on an outdoor patio enjoying a delicious Italian dinner with my girlfriend. As  I looked just beyond the fence enclosing the patio, I saw a man setting up with his guitar and laying his case on the ground, inviting anyone who enjoyed his music to pay a token of their appreciation. With street performers, I tend to try to stick by a personal rule where if I hear the music and enjoy it, I owe it to them to drop a dollar or two in the performer’s case, it just seems fair, like a business; they provide a service, I compensate them for it. So as I ate and talked to my girlfriend, I listened to the vibrant melodies rising from the street. The musician was no Clapton, but sang with a deceptively crisp voice that you would hardly expect to come from a disheveled 60 year old missing a few front teeth and a sporting the fisherman’s cap that my grandpa wore as a kid. The guitar followed as his voice led and rang through the street, bringing an ambiance to the city atmosphere that was a surprising treat. The thought occurred to me that as everyone on that street operated in their own individual worlds, on their dates or at their business dinners, the musician’s art operated in everyone’s world. Each individual experience on that street shared a single unifying element; this element rose above all differences as everyone heard the same music.

My girlfriend saw my hand slide to my back left pocket fishing for my wallet, and handed me another dollar; he was after all playing his rocky rendition of Stand By Me, her favorite song. I walked over with a phaux-confidence and swagger. The self-assurance was artificial, because at 20, I felt like a child again. I just wanted to help out a hard-working man, but I could feel the cool stares of the other affluent restaurant patrons and designer shop customers. Maybe they felt guilt that they hadn’t given anything, or maybe they forgot that they at one point or another needed help to get where they were. Either way, I was in the vast minority when I dropped the cash in his case, and added “Thanks man, you sound great”. I cracked a chuckle when he flashed a wily smile and replied, “hey man, just tryin’ to help your date out”. I liked him. He had style and confidence, and when my eyes weren’t on my girlfriend, I was watching him, wishing more people might pay him for his service. As the smells from the Chinese, Italian, and Indian restaurants wafted into the air and the sun set behind the steeple of a Victorian cathedral, his voice rose above the street like a colorful kite painting the sky and provided a beautiful background noise belying the common city commotion. Despite his talent, my wishes had little effect. I would see people get out of Porsche’s and not pay the guitarist even a glance as a party of 50 exiting the steakhouse walked by without offering a single donation. How in the world does this guy make any money? If people who could literally drop a hundred dollars on the performer and not even notice a dent in their wallet refused to part with even a quarter, who would give this guy anything?

Now that was a presumptuous question. Remember, as I mentioned before, Generosity isn’t classist, as my previous question would have implied. For a summer night he was doing alright, probably scoring on 1 out of every 50 bystanders. Looking at the 49 became discouraging, so instead I chose to focus on the 1’s. This focus revealed a vastly surprising phenomenon. The first person who I saw drop a coin into the guitar case wore tattered sweatpants and had just woken up from a brief nap on a park bench, warming himself with a torn blanket. The next person to donate was another elderly street performer, who had just wrapped up his juggling act. He flung a few bills the musician’s way as he struggled to carry all his juggling balls and batons to his rusty bike. A pregnant African-American woman shuffling down the street with a McDonalds bag in her hand was the third person to lob a few jingling quarters into the case. Then a 12 year old who begged his dad for a dollar to give. Then a guy who looked like he was straight out of Woodstock. Then a street-sweeper, whose job that night must have been made less monotonous by the notes coming from the musician’s guitar all evening. The trend continued all night. Those who seemed most desperate were also the ones who seemed most eager to help out a struggling stranger. Maybe the napping man appreciated the calming music as he slept, or maybe those without superfluous goods can hear and appreciate the beauty in a street performer’s voice on a simple level that the abundantly wealthy forgot long ago. Whatever the reason, I met Generosity that night, as those who seemed to be most in need were also most ready to give to those in need. I walked away from that date a different person than I had entered. I had a different faith in people, and I had finally met and acquired a new understanding of Generosity.

Most people, I believe, possess the ability and the desire to do good. All things being equal, I think that people from every walk of life hold a unique capacity and wish to be generous, to leave the world a better place than they found it. This is why Dreams for Kids is such a special organization; it takes the youth who many may only see as the future incarnations of Burlington’s pregnant McDonalds customer or park bench tenant, and instead explores and encourages their Generosity, allowing them the opportunity to help others, and throw some change in the world’s guitar case. The universal applicability of generosity is a special entity as it serves as an underlying connection between all people. When we see this connection, and elevate our similarities above our differences, we can all come to know Generosity. And through knowing Generosity and its collective reach, we can allow it to guide every one of us with universally tolerant goodness through easy or hard times in any life, like a sweet song rising above the commotion and isolation and ringing beautifully through a city street.

Tags: Burlington, charity, dfk, DFK Interns, Dream Leaders, Dreams For Kids, music, Noah, streetperformer