Archive - March 26, 2023

Saving the Planet By Kathleen Coskran (Ethiopia 1965-67) The title of the Westminster Town Hall Forum in Minneapolis was “Can We Save Our Planet?” The speaker, Carl Pope, former Executive Director and Chairman of the Sierra Club, was asked, “What can we do to halt the population explosion that threatens the planet?” Pope’s answer: “Educate girls.” I nearly jumped out of my chair to shout, YES! I had recently returned from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where I attended a gathering of 130 girls and young women, some still in secondary school, and others who had been able to finish secondary school and go on to college and university because of Resources for the Enrichment of African Lives (REAL,  real-africa.org). REAL was founded by Tsehai Wodajo, from Nedjo, Ethiopia. Tsehai knew first hand what it took to keep a girl from a poor family in school. In 1970, 8th grader Tsehai wrote . . .

This Colorado ‘solar garden’ is literally a farm under solar panels By Kirk Siegler This year, the garden produced more than 8,000 pounds of produce, while the panels above generate enough power for 300 local homes. When Byron Kominek ( Cameroon 2004-06) returned home after the Peace Corps and later working as a diplomat in Africa, his family’s 24-acre farm near Boulder, Colo., was struggling to turn a profit. “Our farm has mainly been hay producing for fifty years,” Kominek said, on a recent chilly morning, the sun illuminating a dusting of snow on the foothills to his West. “This is a big change on one of our three pastures.” That big change is certainly an eye opener: 3,200 solar panels mounted on posts eight feet high above what used to be an alfalfa field on this patch of rolling farmland at the doorstep of the Rocky Mountains. Getting to . . .