Guest Post - Dan Baum

Hi everyone,

My name is Dan Baum and I was lucky enough to travel with Jill and the other Periclean Scholars to Zambia in 2009. I was only an adopted Periclean scholar at the time – I got to go thanks to my company, The Redwoods Group – but that amazing trip was the start of a lasting connection for me to the Periclean program and Habitat Zambia.

The Redwoods Group is an insurance company that, as strange as this sounds, wants to change the world. The company’s mission is to “Serve Others” and it works extremely hard with its non-profit clients to prevent injuries to the kids and families they serve. On top of that, it uses its financial success to give back, through things like donating money to help endow the Periclean Scholars Alumni Association and giving employees like me paid time off to do amazing things like build with Habitat in Zambia.

The company chose its name because of the longevity and staying power of the Redwood trees themselves. So, it’s not surprising that The Redwoods Group would want to support an initiative like the Periclean Scholars Alumni Association, which maintains each class of scholars’ commitment to making a real, lasting impact on communities all over the globe. What Jill is running in support of is not a one time thing. It’s instead a long term partnership, between the driven staff of Habitat Zambia and a group of passionate Elon students, with the goal of eradicating poverty housing in Zambia once and for all.

I’m so glad (but not surprised) to see Jill finding new ways to stay connected to the people of Kawama, and I’m happy to join her in continuing to support this kind of work. After we got back from Zambia, I went down to Americus, Georgia and got trained to lead Habitat for Humanity Global Village trips. I led my first group to Buea, Cameroon in January and have just made plans for my next trip, which will take me back to Zambia in a few months. I could not be more excited to get back to a place that had such a special impact on me, and see how far the community has come since my last trip in 2009. I have no doubt that Habitat Zambia will have made so much progress and I am so excited to reconnect with our friends there.

Thanks for supporting Jill and the incredibly important work that Habitat Zambia is doing to empower families with homes. Your support not only means a lot to the people of Kawama, it means so much to those of us who have been lucky enough to share a little bit of time being with the members of that community.