Selfless Scholars, Brooks and Zach

Eyota Minnesota is the home of two really good guys, Brooks and Zach. We surprise Zach with a Selfless Scholar Scholarship. 

Transcript

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welcome to the Kindness Chronicles, where once again, we hope to inject the world with a dose of the Minnesota kindness that it desperately needs. Yeah, we got Steve Brown in the studio. We got the, uh, 55-year-old intern, Jeff Hoffman in with us today. Hey everyone. Kevin Gorg. Where are we calling you at? I'm in, uh, beautiful on this rainy gloomy. Yeah, I'm building my arc right now. I already started. And then we have a fun guest from Dover, Yoda, Minnesota, which is 10 miles east of Rochester. His name is Brooks Anderson. Brooks, are you there? Howdy. Hello, Brooks. Brooks is one of our selfless scholar nominators, and we are going to be having Brooks. I don't know if the technology's gonna work, but Brooks, uh, seems we'll cross our fingers. He's a little smarter than the rest of us. Brooks is gonna call his pal, Zach. We're gonna merge that again. Who doesn't know that we're calling him, right? Well, we don't know if he knows. Okay. But we, I talked to his mom. I have kept it a secret. You've kept it a kept a secret. Nice. Yep. I have. It's been hard. I've seen him every day and I've had to be like, biting my tongue. Okay, Brooks. So why don't you call him, merge him in and let us, uh. We'll, we'll take it from there. All right, sounds good. I'm gonna, here we go. Calling him right now. Calling him right now. This is big. It's exciting. I hope the technology works. I'm a little nervous. Okay, so how about that? Uh, maple Leaves game last night. Jesus, 6 0 1. It's like Lucy and Charlie Brown on the football. It's same old thing. Okay. Hopefully this works. Fingers crossed. Uh, hello, is this Zach? Uh, this is Hey, Zach, you are on the Kindness Chronicles podcast. Welcome, sir. I got permission from your mother this weekend, so it's all cool, man. So can't say no to mom. Yep. So Zach, you probably are wondering what the hell is going on here. So let me explain what's going on. Your friend Brooks. Wrote up a beautiful nomination of his friend Zach, for a scholarship that we call the Selfless Scholar. I'm with Minnesota Masonic Charities. we do these scholarships and we are surprising you with a scholarship. The way our scholarship works is instead of asking Brooks to tell us about what a wonderful guy Brooks is, we ask Brooks to identify one of the people in his life that has made a meaningful difference to those around him. And what's unique about this scholarship is the scholarship award of$5,000 is split between the person who does the nominating and the person who is nominated. So you got a$2,500 scholarship coming your way, congrat. Congratulations. Congratulations. Nice job guys. His parents in the background, his parents are in the background, okay? So I always like to say 2,500 bucks ain't gonna get you very far in a modern education, but you know, it don't matter if you're making$25 an hour, he just saved you two and a half weeks worth of worth of work. So, thank you Brooks. So, Brooks, Brooks, why don't you tell us? Do you have access by the way, Zach? Um, on the line we have, uh. If you're a Minnesota wild fan, uh, Kevin Gorg, who's one of the sportscasters for, for the Minnesota Wild, we got a guy by the name of Steve Brown. Hey Brooks, uh, Brooks and Zach. Um, and then we got Hi Zach, Steve Brown, who is, well, he's the lead singer of a very popular band. If you were alive in the nineties, he has no idea, which you weren't, so that's fine. Kind of a big deal back then, especially man. And then we have a 55-year-old, uh, intern in here with us. But anyways, Brooks named Jeff. Do you have a co His name is Jeff. Do you have a copy of the nomination that you wrote? I do, yeah, I have right in front of me right now. Lets you kindly read that for us. Yeah, absolutely. Zach is a classmate of mine who I've been friends with for quite some time. Zach is the one of the most outstanding people I know, both in school and out of school. Zach volunteers on the Yoda Ambulance crew as an mt, as well as bouncing, playing soccer, being Eagle Scout, being in band honor of Southeast Minnesota and being dual enrolled. PSEO student. Zach has liberty of making sure people get home safety when they're not able to drive themselves home for any reason. He would drive two hours just to make sure you got home safely and did not endanger yours or anyone else's lives. It was Zach's influence that led me to do the same and make sure people are getting home safely and being smart when, when doing so, Zach, to me, speaks. Phone charging station in the parks of that he built for anyone to use for free. Speaking to how much he loves his community this year, he has not only been a great friend, but outta the goodness of his heart, was my tutor for my PSEO chemistry class that I was struggling in. Every week he would come over to my house and he would help me with whatever I needed, even if I. I believe Zachary deserves this award because he has all these things, not for money or for friends, but outta the goodness of his heart and to take care of his community. Wonderful. Wow. Wonderful, Zach. What a guy. Very cool. So Zach, we have some, I have some questions for you. Brooks mentioned that you're eating frozen pizza. I'm assuming that he, he meant that the frozen pizza has been prepared properly. Is that accurate? Yes. Don't worry, don't worry. Okay, so tell us about your, I've really it a couple times. So you're an EMT. I'm currently an emr, so just one step below that, but I still get to a lot of stuff. Same. Same thing. Same thing. Come on, come on. Close enough from our perspective. Yeah, you are. That's cool. Why let the facts get in the way of a good story, right? That's what we always like to say. So the EM. So you're, so basically he's an, okay. So as, uh, uh, do you aspire to do something in your, uh, in your career in the medical world? Yeah. So I'm hoping to become a biomedical engineer. Oh boy. So I can help make prosthetics or like artificial organs. So wait a second by, so now you're at a different pay grade than all the people that are on this podcast. What does a bio, what does a biomedical engineer, there's a lot of syllables in those words. I've heard all of the words, but not put together making. So give us an example of what that, you know, so making prosthetics, how, yeah. How does, so how did you decide that this was something that you're interested in doing? ever since I was a kid, I've been building with Legos and as I've been getting older, I've been increasing the, uh, complexity of them. So now I've got motors and I always thought it would be fun to like build arms and stuff. So that's what I've been doing with Legos. Been really fun. I'm unbelievable. Pick it up a level. Very cool. Okay. So you're different than, than we are. Um, I actually, in our a lot harder, that's for, well that's, that's not a very high bar, Mr. Wild. Um, we happen to be in our studio. We are surrounded by, uh, Lego sets. In fact, my son Ben, who is, uh, now a graduate of college, he's got, let's see, I see the Titanic. Wow. I didn't know that was, I see a huge, uh. Huge. Eiffel Tower. Millennium Falcon behind you, millennial Falcon. And he's got all the big ones, but, but what he doesn't have are mechanical arms. Nope, he does not. So that's, uh, we're gonna have to challenge him to ramp up his game just a little bit. Yeah. Hey, let's go Brooks, let's go back to you for a second. Um, how did you find out about the scholarship program? so. Mason, scholarship. I don't remember which one it was, but then I went onto like the website and I looked at it and you have to, nominate someone else. The store, like I have the perfect person, the most outstanding, community person, kindin. and so, yeah, honestly, I just like looked up the scholarship. truth be told, I'm guessing from talking to you're, you're a pretty decent student. I do. All right. Okay. Because those scholarships that you applied for would've been one of our academic scholarships, and they are incredibly. Competitive. well, I will encourage both of you guys next year when you're at your college, whatever college you're at, to apply for our undergraduate scholarship because those scholarships, frankly, larger money-wise So that's just a little piece of advice. Brooks, what are your plans for next year? I will be attending the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Okay. Uh, and studying political science on the free law track with, uh, hopefully I'd like to minor in something, psychology, criminal justice, something in that. Um, and yeah, kind of up in the air of as to what I'm gonna do for. So the first question I have as a, uh, I am a lawyer, and I'm wondering, why would you wanna do that to yourself? I mean, why Put yourself through that? My God, man. lemme ask you, Zach, what, what are your plans for next year? obviously biomedical engineering. so I'll be, uh. Zach, this is Steve. So this is a surprise for you. I'm guessing your parents are in the background there. That's your parents talking. That's the, yeah, that's, yes, they did. Okay, What do you think of this? You don't know who we are, you've probably never, you know, listened to this podcast, which you will now, but, um, you're gonna love it probably after this. But, um, what, what's going through your mind right now? Are you, are you like, wait, what, what am I, what am I into? What's happening? Like, what are you thinking about this moment right now? And what do you, tell us a little bit about your friend Brooks? That was a really long question. Well, I know it's deep. It's. I was still pretty surprised that this is all going on. So I'm pretty happy that, I mean, getting money for college is great and all, and I'm really pleased that Brooks, uh, nominated me. That was really nice him to do, and I'm thinking I have to come visit him with a diet Dr. Pepper. There, there go. You're speaking my language, Jack. So, um, Zach, real quick, would you mind handing your phone to your mother? Oh boy. Uh oh. Oh boy. Yep. Hi. Hi, mom. So I talked to Mom. Mom. Tell us who you are. I'm Vicky. Zach's mom. Vicky. Vicky. I just have to tell you this, I talked to Vicki over the weekend. And Vicki was concerned that this might be a scam and maybe it is. It's still early to tell. We don't know for sure. You know, we can, we can pull one over those people from Yoda down there, and so we're going for good radio here. Good, good podcasting moments. Yeah. This is all you're being punked right now. So anyway, Vicki, you had mentioned something and I'm hoping that you would be willing to talk about this. It almost sounds like. Our friend Brooks might be a, uh, a, a guy who would've qualified as a recipient of the Selfless Scholar. Can you tell us about your impressions of Brooks? Brooks is a wonderful friend to Zachary. Um, very nice young man who has taken a liking to my other. Very welcoming and loving towards them and gives them high fives every time he sees them. So he's a wonderful individual himself. That is so wonderful to hear. I Crazy talented and, and crazy talented. Crazy talented. Not just regular talented. Crazy talented. What kind of, what kind of talents does Brooks have? Steve Brown would appreciate his, uh, work. This guy can play. I mean, this guy can, like, he's on drum set like nobody says. So I did hear that. I heard This is Jeff. Did you say jazz band? You're hoping for next year? yeah, possibly depends on, um, how my track season end. We have a whole bunch musicians here. Love. We got bunch of drummer nerds. Here we go. Here on the podcast. Now we're, now we're getting somewhere. Oh God. That's really cool. Yeah, this is it. Why don't you guys take over? How long have you guys known each other? Zach and Brooks? oh God. Uh, we went to, we went to daycare together. Wow. Wow. Oh wow. Childhood friends 16 years ago. That's my wife got together. That's cool. Yep. And we were friends all throughout elementary, middle school, high school. We've gone through so many different phases of like, it'll be like six months completely locked in on doing a certain activity and it'll be the next activity. I caught that Zach was an Eagle Scout, uh, or at least his working on his Eagle Scout project. Brooks, are you in scouts with him? Nope. Never a scout. We have another Eagle Scout here. Zach. Fellow Eagle Scout here. And tell us a little about your public phone charging station. What would, what's that all about? one of the things that we had noticed was there was not really any place to charge your phone or devices out at our park. So we basically built,, charging stations and we installed them at the parks for people to use. So, wow. Solar application. So, wait a second. They require electricity. I would assume. I'm not great at math, but I would assume that this requires electricity. So, I mean, were you like digging holes and looking for a wire to connect it to, or how did that work? they're completely powered by solar. So we have a large solar panel on top. It feeds into the battery, which power our charging cords and our wireless charging, uh, station. We're in over our skis here. Boy, that's cool. I love it. I have a feeling that someday soon we're gonna be walking down Nicolet Mul and we're gonna see a guy with a Lego arm and we're gonna know who's responsible for, uh, putting that together. We're gonna say, looks like Zach was here. another quick question for Brooks. are one of you guys a lacrosse player? No. I just happened to have a lacrosse ball in my room for whatever reason. it's a good weapon. Good weapon. Well, because here's why I say that as this is the Kindness Chronicles. I watched a lacrosse match the other day. We have a, a neighborhood lad who my son grew up with, who's in his fifth year at Notre Dame, and he is, uh. A lacrosse player, and I've never really watched lacrosse. There's not a lot of kindness going on on lacrosse fleet. Oh yeah. It's rough. It's the only games. It's fast where you can, it's pretty physical. You can whack people with the stick and it's like allowed. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's, it's physical. I mean in hockey, K, it's on the draft. What's that? I'm sorry. Hockey on the grass. But you're not allowed people in hockey kg, come on. Well. Couple years ago. Oh, that's true. Some of that stuff gets let go. But no, lacrosse is incredible to watch. Yeah. I just, I can't believe there aren't more injuries. To your point, John, it's extremely physical. I just heard lacrosse ball and I thought, okay, maybe these guys aren't as smart as I thought that they were. You know, that's, uh, they're too smart for that. We're we, we have a baseball family over here and that's where, you know, the cerebral people spend their time in the spring of the year. Hmm. Um, did are for sure, did I hear one of you as a track person? Yeah, that's, that's, uh, that's me. Brooks. Brooks. So Brooks, what, uh, what do you compete and track? I'm only a high jumper. Oh. Oh, wow. And he's really good at that. What's your personal best? six foot five inches. Okay. Wow. Holy god. Wow. That's incredible. Does it go that high in Yoda? we try to make it. I, my goal is to, uh, high jump at the U of M next year. Oh wow. Like where I need to be to jump v1, um, I guess, sorry, big 10 d1. But, um, I mean, it's my goal to, uh, high jump next year at the University of Minnesota. I assume you're not gonna be, commuting from Yoda to, the Twin Cities every day? Are you? Oh, do you know where you're gonna be living yet? I won't know until the last week of July. Oh, no. Do you know who your roommate's gonna be? I do know who my roommate is. I've known him also for about 15, 16 years. He's like my, he's one of my other best friends. Uh, he's from a little town called Chatfield, Minnesota, which is about five miles. You know, Chatfield? They got one heck of a wrestling program. Oh yeah. Yes. On behalf of your parents wrestling and football, on behalf of your parents, make good choices young man. Is your, uh, is your Chatfield buddy a wrestler? actually he's a basketball player. Oh, okay. And player. So he was never really into the guys since you are both., Uh, recipients or will be recipients of this award? Um, yeah, the check is in the mail. Yeah. No, but, uh, I just wanna know, what's your influences? What, why, why are you, the way you are? What's, what brings you guys to this spot in, in this modern world with all the things that, go on with social media, all that kinda stuff. What creates your disposition and uh, is it your friendship together? Do you inspire each other? Gimme a little of that. I'd say we just kind of build off of each other. I mean, I try to keep smart decisions happening and he kind of reinforces that and we just kind of build off each other in that sense. That's great. Huh? Eventually it all comes back. You know, I believe in karma. You know, you do good things, good things that come back to you. It's also a little bit of a be the change you wanna see. You know, I see there's a lot of hate in this world. You know, you see it on the, the, the age of social media and how it's changed, how we perceive things, how much hate is going around. And I think that if I try to bring more good in this world, hopefully it'll spread around to people around me and then, you know, kind of change the direction of how. Nice. Well, I can tell we got no question. I know. And, and when I talked to, uh, Zach's mom, she mentioned that Brooks, definitely can hold his own when it comes to a conversation. And as you can tell by that answer, I think that a, that a courtroom might be a perfect place for you. That's pretty cool. Also, maybe we should, maybe we should consider, maybe, is Vicki a little bit of a, uh, inspiration as well? I mean, you, I would assume that, gotta throw a little to the parents, right? Mom and dad, right, Zach? The proper answer is, well, it's my mom and dad. Dad. You go, yeah. But you know. Yeah, exactly. You know, if you want extra dessert tonight, I might go down that road. Brooks, I have a, I just had a quick question for Brooks. Tell, tell me like, did. You, you said you, you alluded a little bit to the US or this with, uh, the, the scholarship opportunities, but what, what was the catalyst that made you decide to write about your friend and some of the things that we heard about in the opening story as we were reading, as we were hearing about the nomination I don't think I can really contribute to one specific thing. It's been over the course of, 15, 16 years. People have come and gone throughout my life, people have been nice, people have been mean, but I mean, there's been a single constant factor through the entirety of my life, and that Zach has been the kindest person I know. I think that he deserves to get some recognition for it. I love that. Yeah. And maybe even Zach shared his juice box with Brooks back maybe when they were two or three years old. No. Started their comradery. Yeah. Zach has, Zach's brought me many, many, uh, food, um, in class. And, uh, actually this, so me and Zach played soccer together this fall, and I, I was playing football at the same time as soccer. I always forget. And so, uh, Zach always brought, I had, he had these granola bars and they're just delicious. And he always brought one for me and he always gave one to me. So, I mean, I like, there's just another, you know, reason of why Zach's just one of the greatest people in the world. And Dr. Diet, Dr. Peppers, apparently Brooks, one of the things, yeah. Diet Dr. Pepper Brooks. It's Jeff again. One of the things that it, um. My attention was that Zach will drive two auto, two hours out of his way for, to get people home safely. Is there a, a story behind that? Could you talk a little, talk a little bit more about that? Is there a Yeah, an example or why, why did Zach start doing that? high schoolers will be high schoolers and they'll make bad choices, put way choices, uh, not great decision. Um, and so Zach is known in specifically my grade as the designated driver. And so I was talking to Zach one day. I was like, how far would you drive, like to get someone home safe? I'd probably drive like two hours. Especially if it was you. Alright. Alright, that makes sense. And so that, I mean that just, you know. Might be a business willingness to make sure everyone's safe. There might be a business opportunity in there if there's a ride board or some kind of a poster you could put up in your school. Don't, don't worry, Zach. Zach has taken, taken up a little bit of business opportunity on it, and me and Zach have done a couple, uh, we did a wedding together this summer and we got paid for the wedding plus tips. That was, that was pretty sweet. That is a brilliant idea. And I, I just wanna mention something that as you lads go off to college. There will be plenty of opportunities to make bad choices, and I've already talked about this a little bit, but let me give you some advice, some fatherly advice is a guy who's got three kids that have gone through college. There is nothing more fun. I. Than being the sober guy around a whole bunch of drunk people. And then you can judge them and make fun of them behind their back. Oh geez. I know, I know. This is the Kindness Chronicles, but deep down inside, there's nothing wrong with being the guy that's taking notes and say, Hey, do you remember when you, you know, whatever, you know, fill in the blank. 25 years down the road, you will have that on those people and you might be able to use it to your advantage. That's right. Just a thought. I, I think me and Zach have already used that one. A couple. Okay. Very good. Well, we just wanna thank you guys. I will tell you that, uh, you'll be receiving some information if you haven't already, from, uh, a woman named Elizabeth Zerus and she is our, uh, scholarship. administrator and she will take care of making sure that your school gets the money and those type of things. But again, so grateful that you guys took the time. Thank you so much, Brooks, for, uh, making this a surprise. Vicki, I swear it's not a, a scam. Um, not a scam. And in addition to that, I encourage you guys next year when you're away at college to reapply, you know, tell a story of somebody. In your school for the Selfless Scholar, but in addition to that, apply for those undergrad scholarships because now that we know your name, we might push that one aside, if you know what I mean. Say, yeah, we got a leg up here. Let's pay a little extra attention to these two. Yeah, I like the fun of that. And those ones are like$12,000 scholarships. Now we're getting into the big money now. Big. The best burgers in the state of Minnesota don't. On, uh, Josh White's, uh, tab down there. He's got a nice open tab. I get a tab, do the Masonic charities, they'll take good care of you. Just make sure that the house is well stocked with toilet paper. Why would I go there? Why would I say something like that? I, I, come on man. I just wanna say thank you, both of you, gentlemen, and, and Vicki, uh, and even Vicki's husband and Vicky's husband. I don't know who that is, who that is. He's back there somewhere. Um, I just wanna say thank you for, uh, for applying for this, but also more importantly, thanks for being out there and continue to, to be kind people out in this world. We need you guys. Keep going, keep pushing it and, uh, we really love that you've been a part of this. Thank you. And go, Yoda. And with that, off we go.