School will be built in Afghanistan in memory of Vermont Guardsman

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(Host)  Three years ago Tom Stone died while serving with the Vermont National Guard in Afghanistan. 

Stone was an Army medic who took a keen interest in the welfare of Afghan children.  

This summer, work will begin on a school in an Afghan village, built in Stone’s memory. 

The money raised to build the school came from some who knew Stone and others who simply know his story – including a group of children at a school with a special connection to the fallen soldier.   

VPR’s Steve Zind reports.

(Zind) One April day Tom Stone set out to walk around the world.  This was back in 1992.

Stone had to start somewhere, so he chose the school in his hometown of Pomfret. Principal Lynn McMorris remembers how the staff and students accompanied Stone as he took the first steps of his journey.

(McMorris) "We walked with him the first mile to the Appalachian Trail and waved goodbye.  And around the world he went."

(Zind)  McMorris says the bond between the students and Stone grew stronger through the cards, letters and photos he sent to them over the eight years it took him to circumnavigate the globe and return to Pomfret. 

(McMorris) "His letters were so entertaining and so interesting.  The children were just fascinated.  When we’d get a letter from Tom, we’d read them at our assembly."

(Zind) The students who corresponded with Stone are grown.  But his name is not unfamiliar to the K through 6th graders who attend the Pomfret School now. They’ve raised just over a thousand dollars to help build a village school in Afghanistan in Stone’s memory. 

The idea of students from Pomfret School helping children in Afghanistan would have appealed to Stone.

(Loving) "He was a magnet for kids.  Kids just flocked to him.  He loved schools. He loved kids.  He would be smiling."

(Zind) Stone’s partner, Rose Loving, says the thought of building a school in Afghanistan in Stone’s memory came to her after she read the popular book "Three Cups of Tea."  But Loving didn’t know how to go about it until she met Jonathan Hoffman.  The culinary arts teacher at the Center for Technology in Essex Junction has been raising money and traveling to Afghanistan in the summer for the past seven years, working with villagers to build schools.

So Loving relied on Hoffman’s expertise while she raised the money to build the school. To date, Hundreds of people have contributed, and Loving has far surpassed the original goal of $20,000. 

Jonathan Hoffman never knew Stone, but he’s struck by the deep connection Stone made with the people he met.

(Hoffman) "I have been literally meeting people at the gas pump who knew Tom.  And I had a former student of mine walk in a couple of weeks ago with this little metal box and it had all the letter and postcards that Tom had sent her while he was on his walk."

(Zind)  Hoffman will leave for Afghanistan early this summer to begin work on Tom Stone’s school. 

Because so much has been contributed to build it, there’s a good chance that next year, Hoffman will be able to build a second school in Stone’s memory. 

For VPR News, I’m Steve Zind.

 

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