NY Times best-selling author Mortenson visits CFJH

By HEIDI DESCH/Hungry Horse News

Greg Mortenson started his talk to Columbia Falls Junior High students last week in a somewhat unusual way.

He asked everyone to join him by removing his or her shoes.

"In any school in Pakistan, Afghanistan and parts of Africa students do this because they are so honored to go to school," he explained. "I just can't go into a school without taking my shoes off."

Mortenson is the co-author of the national best seller "Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace… One School at a Time."

The book chronicles Mortenson's mission to help build schools, primarily for girls, in the remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Junior high students presented Mortenson with a check for $1,498.50 toward Pennies for Peace. Mortenson started the program under his Central Asia Institute. The focus is to fund education projects and donations are based mostly on folks giving pennies toward the cause.

CFJH students spent four weeks collecting pennies in the office of the junior high with the promise that Mortenson would come at the end to speak and collect the donation.

Mortenson, who now lives in Bozeman, attended college with Principal Dave Wick.

The student council help lead the project.

"It's a great thing that we can contribute and help other kids learn there," council president McKenzie Kiser said.

Mortenson thanked students for their contribution.

"It's so inspiring to see what you've done," he said.

Last week, Mortenson explained to students that their donation of just one penny buys a pencil for students in Pakistan and Afghanistan. That pencil can mean literacy and much more for the people.

"Education give you hope. When you have hope you can do anything," he said.

He also told them of the journey that led him to his efforts to build schools. His story is chronicled in his book.

Mortenson began his mission after a failed attempt at climbing K2, the world's second highest mountain, in 1993. The attempt came after the death of his younger sister. His goal had been to place her necklace on the top of the mountain to honor her memory.

While recovering in a village in rural Pakistan, he saw 84 children sitting outside writing in the dirt with sticks.

One of the young children asked him to build a school.

Mortenson promised that he would. He returned to the United States and began writing letters to celebrities and sports stars.

The only response came from broadcaster Tom Brokaw, who sent a check for $100. Mortenson sold his car and other belongings, but was only able to raise $2,000. That left him $10,000 short of his goal.

A breakthrough came when his mother, a principal, asked him to speak at her elementary school in Wisconsin. Students there collected 62,000 pennies towards his cause.

"When you think about it, it wasn't the movie heroes, the sports stars or the adults, it was the children," Mortenson said.

From there his program took off bolstered by one-cent donations. As of 2007, he's established over 61 schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Mortenson said that in the last seven years there are seven times as many children attending school in Afghanistan.

But not all the news is positive.

Mortenson said many schools, especially girls' schools, continue to be bombed or destroyed by the Taliban or jihads.

He said there is fear that educating children will end recruiting to the groups, which is why the groups do not want to see schools.

But Mortenson plans to continue.

"The hope is that in the next 15 years we can eradicate illiteracy and all children will go to school," he said.