Patron of Goodness

Benefactors come in unlikely guises. Who, for instance, would have thought that the inventor of dynamite would establish what has become the highest--and richest--honor in sciences and letters? Randy Mate has yet to achieve the scale and renown of Alfred Nobel, but the Glendale building contractor’s small cash prizes to local poets, artists and writers have set him up as something of a local angel for the arts.

Mate’s tiny prizes--generally no more than $25--go to poems and stories that celebrate virtue. A few times each year, he publishes the works on honesty, tolerance and friendship in a newsletter and solicits new pieces through word of mouth. The idea, says Mate, is to promote the goodness that dwells within us all--and so often gets forgotten in the daily rush to get ahead.

Pictures and words hold the power to change the realities in which they exist, regardless of their reach. Someday, just maybe, one of Mate’s beneficiaries will touch millions with ideas and language. For now, though, Mate is content just to brighten the little corner of the world he calls home. And, with every kind word that trickles into the constant stream of information, he does.