My wife Joan and I signed on as charter partners of Project Redwood in 2005, and I even sponsored one of our early grantees, Nuru International. However, in the intervening years I became less active, simply making my minimum, annual contribution to remain a member.
Last fall I received an email from Project Redwood about a get together in Manhattan at the Union Club to hear Tracy Kidder, a non fiction author I had enjoyed since his 1981 Soul of a New Machine, and the subject of his latest book, The Strength in What Remains, Deogratias Niyizonkiza.
I got a copy of the book, read it in advance of the event and was moved by the story of this refugee from the genocidal war in Burundi and Rwanda and his further journey from survival in the squatter buildings and woodland of Central Park to some of our greatest universities, eventually coming to the attention of Tracy Kidder. I wanted to see this young man and also to connect with the author I had so enjoyed over more than 30 years.
The Union Club event gave me the opportunity to see several classmates I had not talked to since graduation and became the impetus for my wife and I deciding to attend the Project Redwood annual meeting in Washington, DC, in October. Those three days turned out to be a lot of fun, again connecting with classmates infrequently seen over the years, and an opportunity to get a better grasp on what Project Redwood was all about – a serious effort to assist a large number of people living in conditions of poverty almost beyond my imagining. I also came to realize that this successful but fragile non-profit start-up was really whatever we, as the GSB class of 1980, wanted it to be, dependent only on what we were willing to offer to make that happen.
Deo also came to this meeting and was our keynote speaker. At the cocktail hour afterwards I had the chance to talk with him at length and we found much in common including both having graduated from Columbia University and that his sleeping place, in the 100’s in Central Park, was very close to where my father used to go for the cool evening air on hot summer nights when he was a teenager growing up on the edge of Harlem in the 1930s.
Earlier this month I received my issue of Columbia Magazine and there was Deo on the cover as the lead story. Ken Inadomi, the Project Redwood sponsor of Deo’s Village Health Works, also saw this article and shared it with some of us. The piece is very well researched and written, telling a story of a remarkable individual but also of a healthier and thriving community in a war ravaged land, which our contributions to and involvement with Project Redwood have helped make possible. If you have not yet seen the profile, check out this link.
I was asked to join the Project Redwood Grant Review Committee this summer, where I had the pleasure of working as part of a great group, considering 20 grant applications, each sponsored by a fellow classmate. The process was very rigorous and there was an evening or two when I had to devote significant personal time to my assigned tasks. However, it was inspiring to witness the breadth of opportunities presented to us, to help those who need it the most, and to see the considerable talents of these people, friends once and now again, put to such good use.
Rick and Deo at the 2013 Annual Meeting