A man on a mission
He's managed to feed 11,000 kids in the Rift Valley in Kenya. He's set up 10 computer labs for school children who only a few years earlier were grateful for pencils and paper.
Steve Peifer has done it quietly, week by week, year by year. His only goal is to do more; if it were in his power to feed and educate every single child in Africa, he'd move mountains to do it.
Recently, his efforts gained him nationwide recognition when on Dec. 6 he received the CNN Heroes award in the Championing Children category during an on-air broadcast. There was a total of 7,000 nominations in six categories.
Peifer's name may be familiar to people who attended Arlington High School in the early 1970s. He graduated in 1973; his wife, Nancy (Wetton), graduated from Rolling Meadows High in 1975. Until six years ago, they lived in Texas, where Steve worked as a manager for a software company.
The story of his journey halfway around the world started with a tragedy. In 1999, shortly after the loss of his infant son, he and his family were invited to spend a year in Kijabe, Kenya, working at the Rift Valley Academy, a boarding school for missionaries' children, operated by African Inland Missions. Nancy had always wanted to do missionary work; Steve never did.
"But after you lose a son, all your cards go back on the table," Steve said. "I said 'yes,' much to my surprise."
The Peifers served as dorm parents and teachers at Rift Valley and their sons, JT and Matthew, attended the academy. (JT is now a freshman at Wake Forest; Matthew will return to RVA this month.)
During their first year at the academy, they used their free time to set up a food program for needy families in the area. At the end of that year, they returned to the U.S. but the memories of starving Kenyan children, too weak to attend school, lingered.
"The first time I delivered food (to a school), all kids were lying on the ground. I asked the teacher why. She said it's Thursday. They hadn't eaten since Monday. When they sit up straight, they faint," Steve recalled. "That was the turning point in my life. I couldn't go back to what I was. We can feed a kid for a month for $1.27. I knew I could never go back."
So in 2001, he quit his job at a software firm, they sold their house in Texas and went, along with JT and Matthew, back to Africa to work at the academy. In 2003 they adopted twin babies, Ben and Katie. The infants had been abandoned because some Kenyan tribes believe that one twin represents good and the other evil. Since they don't know which is which, both are left to die.
Between his duties as college counselor at the academy, Steve looked for ways to expand the feeding program he'd started a year earlier.
Bringing food to starving school children involves traveling over mud-soaked, pot-holed roads and dealing with truck breakdowns on a regular basis. Several tons of maize and beans are purchased from local farms and delivered to schools in the area. The kids' parents lug huge pots to the school, fill them with water, add the raw food (along with some oil and salt for flavor) and spend the morning stirring the mixture over fire. When it's ready, the kids are ready; hundreds stand in line waiting with their plastic containers. They're allowed to eat with their hands, by the way. Forks and knives are a luxury in this part of the world.
Food is a top necessity in life, but for Steve, education is a close second.
In 2003, he started working toward his next mission -- introducing the Kenyan children to computers. They had books, such as they were. But Steve believes that for kids to make it, to earn a living, to get past the weakness, lack of food, and debilitating poverty, they need to be brought into the 21st century.
"Every profession touches computers," he said, during the documentary shown on CNN. "I want kids to feel they haven't been forgotten. I want them to do whatever they were called to do. Learning computers will give them a step up. Their progress is important to the world."
With the help of several friends, he established the first computer center in the area with refurbished laptops shipped from the U.S. The solar-powered center is housed in a steel shipping container, like those seen on railroad cars or trucks. The walls are 2 inches thick, with holes cut in the sides for doors and windows.
"Fort Knox would probably be easier to get into than this container," he said in an e-mail.
They started out with one teacher teaching the teachers; no one -- except the instructor -- had seen a computer before. The center officially opened in June 2004, and the enthusiasm for learning is still there. From 7:30 a.m. until school starts at 8 a.m., kids use the computers for 30 minutes, learning typing and MS Office.
"Kids have been arriving at 5 a.m. to get in line to get an extra 30 minutes on the computers," Peifer said.
There are now 10 centers serving about 5,800 kids. Prior to opening the one center, a teacher told Peifer that the students had come everyday to peer inside and look in wonder at what they would learn.
One student told Peifer: "I have never gone to class on a wooden floor before." All their classrooms had dirt floors. That school tripled in size because of the food made possible by donations from people in this country and others around the world. Now, the kids are learning computers as well.
And so, after nearly seven years, Steve Peifer found himself in New York accepting the CNN Heroes award from Tyra Banks. In his typical self-deprecating way, he said in his acceptance speech, "I've just been kissed by Tyra Banks. And I figured out the odds of somebody like me being kissed by her are the same as a meteorite striking this building in 50 minutes. … So I would start ducking if I were you."
This isn't the end of the story. Steve and Nancy want to feed 25,000 kids and have a total of 25 computer centers. Through the Heroes award they will receive $35,000, enough to build three more centers.
Help is still desperately needed. Donations can be sent to AIM (African Inland Missions), P.O. Box 178, Pearl River, NY 10965. Indicate it's for Steve Peifer's support, Peifer computer program or Peifer feeding program.