PALO ALTO, CA -- A Palo Alto couple has taken the concept of giving to a whole new level this holiday season. Rather than giving their family and friends gifts - they've given them a challenge. It's called the giving challenge.
Its pride you see in Keith and Mariela Kleiner's eyes as they watch home videos. But they aren't of their two year old daughter. They're of friends, all over the world, paying it forward so to speak.
"This is the best gift we could give," said Mariela Kleiner.
The Palo Alto couple decided giving a gift just wasn't enough during the holidays and so last year, they decided to send 20 of their loved ones checks for $1,000 dollars each. But there's a catch.
"They're supposed to cash that check and give it to somebody in need," Keith Kleiner, Palo Alto.
The concept of the giving challenge is this -- people helping people, who will then help others, creating a chain of giving.
But there are rules; the recipient has just one week to spend the money on someone else, video tape the moment and send a copy to the Kleiners.
"Each person has a unique way of giving that is really great and it turns out to not be just about the video but the experience," said Keith Kleiner.
Friends chose to buy toys for underprivileged children, coats for the homeless, and school supplies.
"We were excited but a little overwhelmed," said Mary Ann Treble, participant.
This year the Kleiners had 30 people on their challenge list including Mary Ann and John Treble. The Trebles even got other friends to donate money to the cause in the end they bought $2,000 dollars worth of playground equipment for a low income elementary school in East Palo Alto.
"It was just fantastic to see the enthusiasm in little kids to see them play with things they didn't have and were in need of," said John Treble, participant.
"Just affecting one person's life, giving a little bit can make a difference. Yeah, you don't have to solve all the world's problems, just help one person, they feel better and so do you," said Mariela and Kevin Kleiner.
Last year, after the famous talk-show host gave $1,000 and video cameras to each of her 300 audience members to come up with creative ways to help others, Mariela and Keith Kleiner decided to take up the Pay It Forward Challenge themselves.
Following Oprah's example, they gave $1,000 each to 20 friends and family members . in lieu of holiday gifts . and asked them to videotape their creative philanthropy. Oprah featured the couple on her show on Jan. 27.
"We felt like our ideas weren't good enough, so we asked our family and friends to come up with ideas of their own. We thought we would combine check writing with a gift we could give to other people," Mariela said.
Kleiner and her husband had worked at Google and then moved to Los Angeles for two years. They began the challenge last year after Mariela saw Oprah's show. When they returned to Palo Alto six months ago, where Mariela was raised, Keith began teaching physics and chemistry at Aragon High School in San Mateo. Mariela volunteered on the board of the Friends of the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo and cared for the couple's young child.
Oprah's show had rekindled a longing to create change in a personal way, she said. As a student at U.C. Berkeley, Kleiner recalled the joy of volunteering in a soup kitchen and at a preschool. But a busy life of career building and raising a family eliminated her one-on-one community involvement, she said.
"When you don't do it for a while, you forget how good it feels to help one person," she said.
The couple began their philanthropic venture without expectations. They simply sent off packages containing the $1,000 check, rules and a DVD about the results of Oprah's challenge along with a two-page letter explaining their project. A week later, the videos and e-mails began coming in.
"I was in tears almost every night reading everyone's e-mails. I was very excited," Mariela said.
Kleiner's mother, Rita Milman of Palo Alto, picked a kindergarten class at the Green Oaks Academy in East Palo Alto. She provided $100 food coupons to six needy families and bought gifts for four families at the school last year, she said.
"It felt so good. I learned more about the school, and I learned about the neighborhood. It's a very good thing to affect people directly," she said.
Giving the money away wasn't easy, according to Milman.
"A rule of the challenge is not to give away the money as a check to one organization, but to see the impact of the gift directly on the people. I contacted some nonprofits. I found that they want the check, but they don't want you.
"I want to give them the stuff myself. Not too many organizations will allow you to do that," she said.
Milman carefully researches potential organizations. This year, she is leaning toward helping Opportunity Center families in Palo Alto.
The Kleiners' project has reached people throughout the country . and abroad . where friends and family reside.
Friends Mike and Andrea Wescott paid for entire carts full of gifts for people at a Target store and videotaped the surprised recipients while stationed at the check-out counter. Recipient Debbie Tayback was so taken with the spontaneous gift that she decided to "pay forward" the good deed. She went to her local utility company and gave $100 each to two hardship accounts. She matched the amount by giving to an organization that provides loans to the needy, Kleiner said.
Keith's friend, Mark Palatucci, a doctoral candidate at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh, Penn., used the gift to start a program and a Web site called 100 Robots to give 100 at-risk kids exposure to computer science by building LEGO Mindstorm NXT robots through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. He used the $1,000 to buy four robots, with his family contributing six more. Graduate students at the institute hold "Robot build days" to mentor youth in robot building. Twenty-four robots have been purchased so far.
100 Robots has attracted national attention. On Oct. 28, Google committed $5,000 to the project, according to the Web site.
And Kleiner's Uncle Mario and Aunt Vanda in Florida gave money to help a struggling single mom with three children who worked two jobs and had recently been hospitalized. The mother was able to fix her car and buy her children gifts. The relationship with the family deepened, and Vanda, a psychologist, has been helping the two boys, Kleiner said.
This year, the Kleiners are extending the challenge to 30 participants. Their own pay-it-forward gift will buy supplies for Ronald McDonald House, Kleiner said.
The couple has launched a Web site, www.thegivingchallenge.com, to invite others to join their project or to use it as a model for their own, she said. Donors can send their checks made out to their friends or family along with names and addresses and the Kleiners will send out the instructional packages and post their videos.
"The most gratifying aspect of this is that we are doing more than we could than if we did it ourselves. What better gift can you get than that?" Kleiner said.
Staff Writer Sue Dremann can be e-mailed at sdremann@paweekly.com.
