Breaking Ground by Insight Editions

Author:Insight Editions
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Earth Aware Editions
Published: 2020-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

Big, strong firefighters and police officers grew misty-eyed when the students saluted the American flag and sang “America the Beautiful.” Then the armored van drivers loaded the mountain of pennies into their vehicles and drove them to Bank of Marin. The hard work had paid off, and the $50,000 in coins eventually helped build new schools on former minefields in the villages of Mir Bacha Kot and Bam Saray in Afghanistan.

“Change! One penny at a time!”

* * *

As Roots of Peace’s reputation for getting the job done expanded, so did the number of our partnerships, and soon we had signed agreements with the US Department of Defense to plant thousands of pine trees along the city streets of Kabul, extending as far as Hamid Karzai International Airport. Arriving visitors were then greeted with a vision of nature restored to a place where war had stripped it away.

In early 2005, Gary and I arrived at the headquarters of the US Department of Agriculture to meet with Patricia Sheikh, deputy administrator of the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, to describe our efforts in Afghanistan. Sheikh, intrigued, brought in members of her senior staff to join our conversation, including Liliana Bachelder and Roger Mireles. Based on the Roots of Peace track record, they agreed to represent our cause to FAS and USDA decision-makers and recommend us as a partner project.

A USDA wheat-monetization program was approved and signed in 2008, granting Roots of Peace the right to receive 12,500 tons of wheat that could be sold in-country for a total market value of $3,273,176. The three-year program allowed proceeds from the sale to be used to expand production of grapes, improve postharvest services, and advance business development. Based on field surveys and in consultation with USDA officials, Roots of Peace selected twenty-five districts in three provinces, Ghazni, Logar and Wardak, to implement these objectives. These were particularly war-torn regions, too dangerous for many other organizations, but Roots of Peace had earned the trust of local Afghans, who saw firsthand the results of our nonprofit work.

The journey of the wheat was long and complex. Trucks transported the heavy sacks of wheat grown in the American Midwest to the shores of Virginia, where cargo ships set out to bring the bounty across the Atlantic to Pakistan. From there, the large burlap sacks were relayed by trucks through the Khyber Pass to be sold at market in Kabul. Gary and I traveled to Afghanistan to personally greet the shipment. When we arrived, we saw lines of trucks filled with sacks of flour boldly stamped “USA.” Together, we jumped into the back of a truck. Then Mohammad Sharif Osmani, the Roots of Peace country director for Afghanistan, who had been our translator during our first visit to the country, began the long process of selling the wheat flour to Afghan traders.

Over the years, our reputation for going the extra mile earned us additional contracts with the Asian Development Bank, the European Union, and the World Bank. During these years of rapid growth, one of our proudest moments came when US Army general John F.

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