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Contributed photo
Students interact with Barry Grant in February as he teaches English in a school in the Cambodian village of Tuol Srov. The students sit
in desks and use books provided by Grant and his wife, Vecie.
Their hearts are in Cambodia
Couple adopts tiny school
in Cambodian village
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
Never underestimate the power of one – or two.
Barry and Vecie Grant may seem an unlikely
dynamic duo. Barry left his job as a social worker in
2007 because of a degenerative eye disease. He retains
some peripheral vision, but when he looks straight
ahead, he sees only darkness. Vecie finished her career
as a special education teacher at Hermiston’s Sand-
stone Middle School in 2011. They seemed a couple
ready to settle down and enjoy their retirement years.
When the Pendleton couple took a trip to
Cambodia in 2015, however, something changed
their whole trajectory. They fell in love with a tiny,
poverty-stricken village called Tuol Srov (pronounced
towel-shrove). Since then, they have raised funds
for school supplies, desks and two wells. They teach
English there three months out of every year. They
plan to replace the village’s ramshackle school.
To understand the Grants’ passion for their
adopted village, one must actually go back a few
decades. This journey started 30 years earlier when
Vecie taught English to a Cambodian man named
Phat Ong in Pendleton. Ong had fled Cambodia in
1979 during the deadly regime of Pol Pot, arriving
in Northeast Oregon in 1982. Grant taught English
at Blue Mountain Community College, guiding
Ong as he doggedly increased his command of
the language. Grant encouraged Ong to write his
personal story in English and when he did, she read
with fascination. In the Missouri-sized country
during the brutal four-year Khmer Rouge period,
about 1.5 million people died from starvation,
disease or execution. Ong escaped to Thailand and
then to the United States. Despite the horrors, Ong
missed much about home.
“Phat kept telling me, ‘I want you to go see my
country – it’s so beautiful,’” Grant said.
Ong eventually bought a Pendleton doughnut shop
(now Up with Donuts) and began earning money to
bring family members from Cambodia to Pendleton.
Grant taught them English, too, along with other
Cambodians. She also schooled them in American
culture. Currently, a Cambodian family of four lives in
the Grants’ basement.
The Grants’ connection with Pendleton’s Cambo-
dian community grew stronger and stronger. Finally
Photo by Vecie Grant
Barry Grant takes a sip of water in February
from a well he and his wife Vecie helped to
finance at a school in Tuol Srov, Cambodia.
Contributed photo
A little girl hugs Vecie Grant after Grant and her
husband, Barry, presented her school in Tuol
Srov, Cambodia, with white boards. The Grants
previously presented the school with supplies,
uniforms and backpacks and are raising money
to build a new school building.
in 2015, they went to see Cambodia for themselves.
They didn’t go empty-handed.
“I told Phat I don’t want to just go there,” Vecie
said. “I want to make life better.”
“Education is what’s going to change my country,”
Grant remembers him telling her.
So she and Barry flew to Cambodia and once
there bought $750 in school supplies, uniforms and
backpacks to give as a goodwill gesture. Relatives of
Cambodians they knew in Pendleton watched over the
Grants during the Cambodia visit and advised about
which school to present the gifts. One suggestion was
Tuol Srov, a village of run-down shacks and a couple
hundred villagers. When they visited, the poverty took
their breath away. Most men make the equivalent of
two to five dollars per day farming rice during the wet
season. During the dry season, many work the fields
in Thailand.
The village’s five-room school house seemed
dilapidated to the point of being dangerous.
“The roof was metal and had more holes than
metal,” Barry said. “Some of the holes were a
foot-and-a-half around.”
The school also contained no technology or books
and not enough desks. When the Grants presented
their gift of school supplies, it didn’t feel like nearly
enough.
“We had not even scratched the surface of what
these people needed,” Vecie said.
One elderly villager asked them if they would
build a school. The idea marinated for a while in their
brains. When they returned home, they created a
nonprofit called the Cambodian Rural School Fund to
handle donations for a new school with an estimated
cost of $45,000. They also saved money to buy desks
and two wells for fresh water – one at the school and
another about half a mile away for all the villagers.
When the Grants returned to Cambodia this
January, they arranged for a trusted Cambodian civil
engineer friend to make purchases and deal with
the government for necessary permits. One wealthy
Cambodian man offered to donate 3,000 bricks for the
walls, a value of $1,200, for the project. The Grants
committed $10,000 of their own money and others
donated as well. They figure there is about $15,000
left to raise. A board oversees the little nonprofit.
The Grants said none of the funds raised will go to
administration or travel expenses.
The new school will have three classrooms, a
teacher’s room and a detached bathroom. The school’s
roof will be tile instead of metal.
“When it rains, they’ll be able to hear themselves
think,” Vecie said.
During the most recent trip, they oversaw the
drilling of two wells and purchased additional desks
and some white boards. They taught English to
students and teachers. Vecie said knowing English will
give the children opportunity to work in the tourist
industry and eventually go to college.
In March, villagers gathered to celebrate the
school’s new well, fenced to keep water buffalo away.
Barry grinned as he listened to some boys cavorting in
the water and he tilted his head to get a blurry glimpse.
Vecie felt emotional when she saw a mother and baby
standing under the stream. As water gushed over
them, the baby gurgled happily. It is moments such
as these that keep the Grants committed to spending
three months out of every year teaching English in
Cambodia for the next 10 years.
“As long as we continue to be healthy,” Barry said.
Those wanting to support the school project can
donate via PayPal by going to https://cambodianrural-
school.wordpress.com/2016/07/ or writing a check to
the Cambodian Rural School Fund and mailing it to
1833 S.W. Athens Ave., Pendleton, OR 97801.
———
Contact Kathy Aney at kaney@eastoregonian.com
or call 541-966-0810.
Contributed photo
Contributed photo
A young boy stands inside a classroom of
a deteriorating five-room school. Propped
against the wall, a white board is ready to
be mounted.
Barry Grant smiles as he watches boys frolic in water
gushing from a new well in the tiny Cambodian village of
Tuol Srov. The well was financed by Grant, his wife, Vecie,
and other donors.