Solar panels aren\u2019t typical topics of conversation during the faculty procession at a Wabash Commencement, but this year, Bill Cook \u201966 was in line.<\/p>\n
Moments before the ceremony, Professor of Art Elizabeth Morton approached him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew about his work and the Bill Cook Foundation, so I told him about this amazing place in Zimbabwe, a mission station there that, despite the difficult conditions, is full of life and verve. They are nearly self-sufficient, but need solar panels.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cook listened as the brass quartet played on and a mist of rain began to fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him the priests had asked me to create a film to bring attention to the place to raise funds.\u201d<\/p>\n
And as the students marched toward the Chapel in the unseasonable cold and the faculty prepared to step out, Morton had her answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me that the foundation does fund solar projects, and in Zimbabwe, in fact. He said it\u2019s education-related, he asked me for a proposal, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re working on now. I was fighting back tears as we marched.\u201d<\/p>\n
So this time next year a mission station and school in Zimbabwe may have solar panels, may be electrically self-sufficient, thanks to a conversation on the Wabash Mall.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s pretty much<\/strong> how Cook, and the foundation bearing his name, work.<\/p>\n He meets an Irish nun while on a trip to Myanmar to see the place where his father was stationed in World War II; she is caring for eight HIV-positive kids who are banned from school and need a tutor: The foundation funds it.<\/p>\n \u201cYou cannot say no to an Irish nun,\u201d Cook insists.<\/p>\n He travels to a village in Cameroon and a school project co-founded by Jacob Moore \u201912 that needs solar panels: The foundation funds it.<\/p>\n Teaching a Wabash immersion course in Nairobi, Cook meets several leaders of organizations caring for children and teens in the Kibera slum: The foundation funds them.<\/p>\n A Ugandan woman, whom Cook calls \u201ca wonderful, fierce warrior on my sainthood list,\u201d works in a refugee camp in South Sudan where a badly burned little girl needs surgery: The foundation is funding it this fall.<\/p>\n The foundation\u2019s stated mission is \u201cto help some of the world\u2019s poorest children to get the best education possible.\u201d That often includes removing the obstacles to learning.<\/p>\n Like the warm clothing it funds for Roma families in the mountains of Bosnia, where children walk long distances to school through frigid winters and parents won\u2019t send them without coats, gloves, and hats to keep them warm.<\/p>\n In four years the foundation has backed dozens of projects in 23 countries, funding school construction, books and supplies, music and afterschool programs, educational fees, and other efforts. Almost all of those have been based on relationships that began with a face-to-face meeting and a single question: \u201cWhat do you need?\u201d<\/p>\n A different question<\/strong> got it all started.<\/p>\n Retiring from SUNY Geneseo after nearly 40 years of teaching medieval and renaissance history with a scholarly focus on St. Francis of Assisi, Cook asked himself, \u201cGiven who I am, my wealth and my education, how can I live more like him?\u201d<\/p>\n About that same time, Cook was doing research in Ethiopia and encountered three boys in the street in Lalibela. They asked him to buy them a book. When Cook asked why, they replied, \u201cWe have a book. We’ve read it. We know everything in it. Now we want another book.\u201d The book was about Europe, so Cook quizzed them, asking them to name the capital of each country, which they did.<\/p>\n \u201cI was going to buy the book anyway, but I wanted to push them a little,\u201d Cook recalls. So I asked, \u2018What\u2019s the capital of Moldova?\u2019 They answered, \u2018Chisinau.\u2019 It was amazing!\u201d<\/p>\n Cook found out that the boys had been living on the streets for nine years, going to school to learn English and shining shoes to buy food. Cook bought them a book about America, and about a year later they emailed him and asked him if he would pay their high- school fees. Cook mentioned the boys to a longtime friend who runs the Friends of Florence organization in Italy, voicing his concern that supporting them long term was beyond his means.<\/p>\n \u201cShe said, \u2018You know a lot of wealthy people from your teaching, your work with me and others. Why don\u2019t you form a charity?\u201d<\/p>\n Soon after, the Bill Cook Foundation was born. The boys have since graduated high school and college, all with the Foundation\u2019s assistance, and the projects have multiplied.<\/p>\n \u201cMy goal that first half-year was maybe $25,000 to $30,000. We raised $50,000. The next year, we raised $250,000. Then $300,000, and then $400,000.\u201d<\/p>\n His expertise became intellectual capital\u2014the money he makes from his work for Great Courses or giving lectures and tours for groups and for individuals goes straight to the Foundation. And the relationships established with wealthy and well-connected people on those trips often pay off even more.<\/p>\n The scholar of St. Francis has embraced a vocation of his subject: \u201cbegging\u201d for money to help those in need.<\/p>\n \u201cTurns out, I\u2019m pretty good at this,\u201d he says. Entering its fifth year, the Foundation is at a crossroads.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re moving from our founding to our institutional phase\u201d Cook says. \u201cI’ve been vehement that we not spend money on our people, that it all goes to our projects. I pay for my own transportation and all that stuff. We\u2019ve got volunteers, but we haven\u2019t had any paid employees.<\/p>\n \u201cNow we\u2019re going to start by having three regional coordinators for the three parts of the world we serve.\u201d<\/p>\n Those changes<\/strong> won\u2019t affect the way Cook comes at what he calls \u201cmy last vocation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe all have multiple vocations in life, but as I look back on my life, I can see elements of this one forming way back there. It really has come together in ways that are quite surprising to me.\u201d<\/p>\n The columnist David Brooks writes in The Second Mountain<\/em> that the United States needs \u201cweavers\u201d to mend the social fabric of the country, people who \u201cshare an ethos that puts relationship over self. We are born into relationships, and the measure of our life is in the quality of our relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n Cook and his foundation weave on an international scale, and in the fabric of those relationships are gifts for many, and to himself.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m 75 years old now, a triple-bypass survivor, and a Type 2 diabetic. Something\u2019s going to go wrong in me some time, and there are all kinds of things that could slow me down. But I can\u2019t imagine my attitude about this work changing.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to spend time with my family, yes, but other than that, I\u2019m committed to this, slumping over my computer until the last tick. This is how I want to live these days.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cToday I saw Jesus, and he was teaching in a rural school on the outskirts of Nairobi,\u201d Sam Glowinski \u201912 wrote during his trip with Bill Cook\u2019s History of Religion in Africa class in 2011. \u201cI saw teachers who were not going to allow their kids to give up on their dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n Now Glowinski is traveling with Cook again, this time as one of three regional coordinators for his foundation.<\/p>\n Wabash is connected to the foundation in all sorts of ways. Wabash alumni are major supporters, including John Lennes \u201966 on the foundation\u2019s Board of Directors, and Jake German \u201911, Will Logan \u201911, Richard Gunderman \u201983, and Raymond Williams H\u201968 on the Board of Distinguished Advisors. The foundation supports Wabash too, funding health education programs in Peru for the College\u2019s Global Health Initiative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Solar panels aren\u2019t typical topics of conversation during the faculty procession at a Wabash Commencement, but this year, Bill Cook \u201966 was in line. Moments before the ceremony, Professor of Art Elizabeth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":4871,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-videos","category-features"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/09\/baseco.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4870"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4873,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4870\/revisions\/4873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Wabash Weavers<\/h3>\n