El Dorado, Kan. - An area donor is challenging others to step up and do the same. Adopt-A-Village, started locally by Rick McNary of Potwin and his sister Carmen Murray about five years ago, received a $5,000 donation to go toward their cause. The donor put out a challenge to others to step up and match that donation. She made the donation after hearing about the “mud cakes” mothers were making to feed their children in Haiti. “I just told her the story and she started weeping,” McNary said. He’s taking the money and meeting with the Salvation Army to go through them with it since they reach around the world. “That’s a lot of food,” he said. “That’s a lot of rice and beans. That kind of money could keep a school program going in a village for a year. It could feed kids.” He said one of the things they have learned is if there is a food program in a school, it triples or even quadruples attendance, with most of the additional students being girls. McNary and the others in his group focus their efforts on Haiti and Nicaragua. “We started the Adopt-A-Village concept to help connect people in a continued way to a particular area, a particular village, so that the work became relational and long-term,” McNary said. “Our efforts were more than just relief as far as food and medicine. We wanted to do things to encourage people to make a living.” One way they did that is through a cow/calf program, in which they lend a family a cow and a calf for three years. They get to keep the first calf born and start their own herd. Then after the three years, they turn the cow back in and it is loaned to someone else. In fact, McNary’s son, Caleb, is in Nicaragua right now getting one cow back and loaning it to another family. They also have loaned money to men to start a brick kiln, so they could make brick and sell it for people to build houses. “We’re talking primitive areas,” McNary said. Another project was to start a sewing machine workshop. They taught women how to sew so they could make clothes and sell them. There also is a microloan program for the farmers that has been set up. McNary and Murray are joined by a few others across the United States who have been to Nicaragua. They stay in contact through e-mail. McNary will be taking the latest donation down in April. “Every penny raised goes to helping the people,” he said. The volunteers pay for their own trips and lodging. Someone makes a trip to Nicaragua every two to three months. “You can’t not do it,” he said of helping to feed the hungry people. “Just to know that I’ve shared some of the stuff that I have with people who don’t have anything. “For me, probably, the biggest driving principal is I have never in my life woke up and worried about what I’m going to eat that day. I’ve never had to wonder if I was going to eat.” They hope to build relationships with people in those countries. “We’re not a big organization, but last year we had about $35,000 we took down and bought food for hungry people,” McNary said. The situation is becoming worse in Nicaragua because their products are now being exported and food is twice as high as it was three months ago. McNary said the most driving story of his life was a story about a young man who saw an old man walking along the ocean picking up objects and throwing them back in the ocean. As the young man got closer, he saw the man was throwing stranded starfish back into the ocean. The beach was littered with them and the young man asked the old man if he thought he was really going to make a difference. As the old man picked up another and threw it back, he said, “I did to that one.” “I think that’s what we do,” McNary said. “We try to make our difference to one starfish at a time.” Anyone wanting to make a donation, can contact Rick at 734-6845 or call Murray at Jacob’s Well. Checks, which are tax deductible, can be made out to Adopt-A-Village or Images of His Glory. “There’s a handful of people that would like to see El Dorado get connected over some period of time,” McNary said. “This lady would like to see this happen; to see El Dorado sister- up with an area of the world.”