When it comes down to it, the Champion Guidance Center is a community. On Mondays and Fridays we are closed to everybody but volunteers and interns. On these days, the center might resemble someone’s living room. Some of the guys might be wiping down tables, doing laundry, or just sitting on the couch watching a movie. One of the men will grab a tray of left over food from the dining room to share with the others. Jokes, stories, advice, and cigarettes flow among the men of the center like blood through a living organism.

Everything that has come to be here has developed organically. I’m not talking about manure here. What I mean is that people bring to the center their own skills and interests. Those who know how to cut hair offer free haircuts, and those who enjoy expressing themselves through words sign on with the acting company. The center is constantly shifting and changing as its personnel changes. Like a living being, it responds to its environment, manifesting that which it is made up of—its people.

One of the ways we have achieved this open exchange of ideas and services is by avoiding what Steve calls a quid-pro-quo atmosphere. From what I have been told, this is how things work in prison. If you do something for someone, you expect them to return your favor. The problem with this system is that no one is really looking out for anyone else. What might appear to be an act of generosity is really a means to an end for the do-gooder. (I should add that this outlook is by no means limited to the formerly incarcerated. If grocery stores did not receive tax deductions for their close-to-expired food donations, I doubt we would have much of the food we serve.)

This breaking down of the quid-pro-quo applies to the negative as well as the positive. This means that the old eye-for-an-eye code of conduct does not apply here as it does on the streets or in the penitentiary. It has been said that an addict needs to hit rock bottom several times before he is ready to make the necessary changes in his life (I am using the masculine here because I am referring to the clients of the men’s center). Some of our volunteers will criticize Steve for being overly compassionate. Steve loans his own money to long time clients struggling to pay the cost of storage units or rent (sometimes referring to himself as the “Bank of Krank”). He forgives those who have made mistakes, welcoming them back in to take a shower and do a load of laundry. The Guidance Center is really a last chance for a lot of people who have nowhere else to go and nothing left to give.

According to Steve, the way to avoid this eye-for-an-eye mentality is to help others first and expect nothing in return. If our clients are interested in becoming more involved with the center, we welcome their services. If they are not here to volunteer, we still do what we can for them. When it comes down to it, we can’t tally the rights and wrongs of our clients. Steve and I make a lot of mistakes ourselves, and we are not in a position to do that. Our clients and volunteers receive our services, not in exchange for what they do for us, but as recognition of their dignity as human beings.