One day last spring, Patti Withrow walked into a Machias grocery store wearing a “Save Darfur” T-shirt.
What was the chance of this? On that very day and in that very place — Machias, of all places — Withrow happened upon David Larson, also dressed in a Darfur shirt.
“He started talking to me about Sudan,” said Withrow, 47, of Lake Stevens. “Most people don’t know anything about it.”
She cares deeply about the African crisis. Since a war between rival groups began in 2003, thousands of people have been killed and villages have been burned in Darfur, part of western Sudan. Thousands more have died of starvation or been violently driven from their homes. Untold numbers of once-settled people are now in refugee camps in Darfur and Chad.
Withrow’s 18-year-old daughter, Nichole, was involved last year in efforts to start a Lake Stevens High School chapter of Students Take Action Now Darfur, or STAND. Selling cookies at school, her daughter had also helped raise money for Invisible Children, a charity aiming to help children forced to fight as soldiers in Uganda.
Through those interests, Withrow discovered Tents of Hope, a Darfur awareness and fundraising campaign. She went so far as to buy a canvas tent, with the plan of painting it and sending it to Washington, D.C.
This weekend, a Gathering of Tents on the National Mall is drawing attention to the plight of people in Darfur. Brightly decorated tents from volunteer groups around the world have been sent to the Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Washington, D.C., and church volunteers have put them up on the mall.
Speakers there are spreading the word about the Darfur tragedy. An interfaith worship service this morning is part of the Gathering of Tents schedule. At the end of this weekend’s event, tents will be taken down and shipped to Africa to be used by refugees from Darfur.
When Withrow walked into the Machias store last spring, she said, “I had the tent, the paint, the paintbrushes, all these things at home in my computer room.” She had hoped her daughter would take on the project. With the demands of Nichole’s senior year, the items were going unused.
Larson, a 32-year-old history teacher at Centennial Middle School in Snohomish, was just the person to finish what Withrow started. After their chance meeting, Withrow happily donated her tent and paints to the middle school teacher.
Last year, students in Larson’s world civilization classes held weekend car washes to raise thousands of dollars for the International Rescue Committee. The nonprofit organization has teamed up with the ONE campaign, championed by U2 singer Bono, in efforts to fight poverty and disease around the world.
“I believe the next generation will be wiping poverty off the face of the Earth,” Larson said in 2007, when I wrote about his zeal for sharing global problems with his middle school students.
This fall, students taught by Larson and other Centennial teachers put up the tent in an abandoned portable at the school. “It took us a month and a half,” Larson said of the paint job. The kids started by painting messages — “We love you” and “You are not forgotten,” Larson said. In the end, they repainted the canvas with bright colors and symbols of hope.
“I had to think quick, they were dripping paint all over,” Larson said. About 60 students worked on the tent, leaving handprints that will reach all the way to Africa.
Larson had help from his wife, Sarah, who majored in art at Spokane’s Whitworth University. With a 4-month-old baby girl and a 2-year-old daughter, it’s amazing the couple finds time to think of dire needs a world away.
He’ll often hear people — more adults than kids — ask why he chooses global charities rather than helping those hurt by a tough economy here. He responds by comparing the extreme circumstances of Africa and other countries to what Americans view as poverty.
“Around the world, millions of people live on less than a dollar a day,” he said.
Kids get it, he added. Those middle-schoolers may teeter between childhood and teen years, in a mixed-up stew of hormones and contradictions.
“But they have compassion,” Larson said.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Tents of Hope
Tents of Hope is a yearlong effort to raise awareness of the crisis in Darfur. Using the refugee tent as a symbol of the plight of people forced from their homes in Sudan, the campaign encourages donations for humanitarian relief. Hundreds of churches, schools and other groups are painting canvas tents with images of peace and hope.
A Gathering of Tents, including a tent painted by students at Centennial Middle School in Snohomish, is happening this weekend on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Information: www.tentsofhope.org.
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