Trey Thompson (Tepper 2019)
Favorite volunteer organization: YMCA Homewood-Brushton. ├óÔé¼┼ôI help low-income residents prepare income tax returns during tax season (late January – mid April). It's rewarding for me because I can see the impact of my work right away.├óÔé¼┬Ø
├óÔé¼┼ô[├óÔé¼┬ª] I've gained a much clearer understanding for the lives of people throughout the city who I otherwise never would have interacted with. Going through a person's taxes is a distinctly personal activity that winds up including stories of new jobs, unemployment, childcare, divorce, entrepreneurship, family deaths, and even kids coming with their parents to file their first returns. The overall experience is definitely one of the top things I'll miss about Pittsburgh.├óÔé¼┬Ø
Favorite volunteer experience: ├óÔé¼┼ôCarnegie Library's Reading Buddies program pairs volunteers with elementary-age students who come for homework help or after school reading time. One 4thgrade student, Eddie, had come for help with math. It was clear that he had the skills he needed but was lacking confidence. We worked together for 20 minutes and he finished the assignment. By the end, I wasn't even actually helping, just cheering him on when he got to the right answer or showed good persistence. When he finished, I reminded him that he had done the whole assignment practically by himself and he absolutely beamed with pride.├óÔé¼┬Ø
Why do you volunteer? ├óÔé¼┼ôHow we define our communities matters. My goal as a business leader is to be able to adopt as broad a definition of community as possible, both within my company and beyond it. And if I define my community to include parts of Pittsburgh (or Buffalo, or any other place) that includes people who make less money than me, look different from me, and/or have fewer opportunities than I do, then I have no less responsibility to them than I have toward the members of a team I'm working on at my job. From this perspective, volunteering just makes sense. It also builds my understanding of potential customers, supports networking throughout a company, and brings me joy.├óÔé¼┬Ø
What is your Vision for the Tepper Community? ├óÔé¼┼ôOne of the biggest surprises since I've attended Tepper has been students' fierce devotion to supporting each other. My vision for the Tepper community is that this rabid dedication to supporting the members of our business school community be applied more broadly in support of people who don't have an MBA or even a college degree. While in business school, I've gained access to a variety of skills, networks, and companies that set me up for positions of future power. I honestly believe that there many life circumstances that could have occurred which would have prevented me from pursuing my goals and building the professional resources I now have available to me. From that perspective, basic fairness dictates that I support those around me whose lives I have the power to benefit, especially those with more limited access to power.├óÔé¼┬Ø