A self-proclaimed “sports freak,” Fred Kesler goes to dozens of Napa and Vintage high school athletic events each year.

If the lights at Memorial Stadium are on, Kesler is likely there, no matter which team is playing.

His support of local youth doesn’t stop there. Kesler and his wife Sue have been regular financial donors to their children’s — and now grandchildren’s — classrooms.

Teachers get $500 a year for extra supplies, field trips or whatever they consider worthwhile. “I don’t ask,” Fred Kesler said. “The teachers run the classroom. They’re not going to rip you off.”

The Keslers also donate a $500 scholarship annually to a scholar-athlete at each of Napa’s public high schools. They don’t pick the best athlete, but one with a high grade point average.

As vital as athletics can be in a child’s development, academics are more important, Fred Kesler said.

The Keslers’ giving to the public schools doesn’t stop there. The Keslers donate used computers from their business, Kesler and Associates, to local classrooms. It’s a sad reality, but their discards are more powerful than the computers on campus, Fred Kesler said.

Over the years the Keslers have donated more than $50,000 in cash to support public education. A computer here, a scholarship there; it all adds up.

“I wish there were more Fred Keslers in Napa,” said Gina De Luca, executive director of the Napa Valley Education Foundation. “Public education needs the support of everybody in town.”

Last year, the foundation received teacher requests totaling $170,000 to buy items that the Napa Valley Unified School District cannot provide, said Rachel Wyckoff, foundation president. The foundation had funds to grant less than half this amount.

The foundation is implementing a new strategy to boost fundraising. It will need more people like the Keslers in order to succeed.

Local businesses could be doing much more, Sue Kesler said. It’s more than a matter of philanthropy, she said. It makes business sense.

“If (graduates) can’t read and write and can’t use a keyboard, they’re not very good employees,” she said.

It also comes down to civic responsibility. “If you’re part of a community you need to put back into the community,” she said.

The Keslers moved to Napa in 1977. They raised two daughters and a son here. Today they have eight grandchildren, four of them in Napa.

Fred has coached basketball and soccer, while Sue has served on the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission and the Napa County grand jury, and has been involved in running a foreign exchange student program.

They have hosted seven foreign students and opened their home to two foster children.

Their business, Kesler and Associates, serves as an insurance agency of sorts for banks and credit unions. When a borrower promises to name the lender as a beneficiary on a collateralized loan, the Keslers make sure that they do.

Their office on Kaiser Road quietly hums with two dozen workers sitting at computer stations. The walls are decorated with framed posters from the Napa Valley Education Foundation’s annual Taste for Knowledge fundraisers. Fred Kesler has never missed a Taste for Knowledge event.

Along a rear wall are framed letters of thanks from recipients of the Keslers’ student-athlete scholarships.

Fred Kesler points to the letters and beams. “It doesn’t get any better than this,” he said.