In 2001, when George W. Bush announced that we had won the “war” in Afghanistan, he indicated that now we were going to help rebuild the country.  In Santa Barbara, Dr. James Rolfe felt that the rebuilding was what he should do.  So he packed up a bunch of dental equipment and left for a “working vacation” in Afghanistan to help the widows and orphans there.

After three weeks of doing dentistry, he realized that his vacations wouldn’t make a dent in the dental needs of that war-ravaged country.  He had found that ONE of the 134 dentists in the country was so high-tech that he had a dental x-ray machine.  There was no dental school in Afghanistan; there were no dental assistants in Afghanistan; there were no dental hygienists or dental technicians in Afghanistan.   He had learned that he had to either treat children and women or he could treat men; not both.  Clinics can have both sexes working there, but must treat only one sex.

When he returned the next year, he made contact with government officials and suggested that he could build a dental office in a shipping container in Santa Barbara and ship it with three other containers to Afghanistan.  If they were set in a square, a roof could be put over the central area, and it would provide a place for Afghan dentists or foreign dentists to provide dental care.  They could use the clinic as a teaching facility, and when there was no need for it in Kabul, then it could be moved to one of the other towns, and gradually, dental services would be given to the people of Afghanistan.  The government officials thought it was a wonderful plan, and Dr. Rolfe returned to Santa Barbara ready to work year-round to help the people of Afghanistan.

He set up a non-profit organization, The Afghan Dental Relief Project, ADRP, Inc.  He solicited used dental equipment from local dentists and bought a shipping container.  He designed a three-operatory office with a sterilization area and a small laboratory.  He bought a shipping container and went to work building the office.

Dr. Rolfe has been in dentistry for 40 years.  At this time he has a successful dental office in Santa Barbara where he provides the finest quality of restorative dental care, and does all his own laboratory work, a skill that few dentists have.  He had spent some time “in the California wilderness” where he also learned the skills of building, - carpentry, plumbing and electricity, as well as a command of mechanics and fixing dental equipment.  McGivor set to work to create the complete clinic.  It had a generator in case of no electricity; it had hot and cold running water; it had a compressor and a vacuum system.

Shipping charges are big, and fund raising was difficult.  I first met Dr. Rolfe in 2005 at the California Dental Convention where he had a free booth as a non-profit and was trying to get dentists interested in giving to help the people of Afghanistan.  At the end of the convention, he also got any “left-overs” from the many different dental supply people who didn’t want to pack home open boxes of gloves, towels, or small dental tools.  Besides the dental clinic container, Dr. Rolfe now had another container filled with any donations of whatever for the people of Afghanistan.  He had quantities of shoes, and lots of other dental equipment and supplies.  It contained denture teeth for thousands of dentures.

I knew not to get involved.  He was passionate about his work; it was in a country that certainly had NOT seen the end of the war.  But, I have always felt that war destroys the nations that resort to it, and humanitarian help rebuilds nations.  Certainly, the Marshall Plan was the way we turned our enemies into friends, and this sounded like one man’s Marshall Plan.  I gave nothing.  But I didn’t forget him, and when my little United Nations group discussed what they might do for their next public meeting, and someone suggested a program on Afghanistan, I remarked that they could do a fundraiser for a crazy dentist who was building a dental clinic to send there.  “We don’t do fund-raising, but if you can get your Rotary to work with us, we will help you.”

The Mid San Fernando Valley Rotary Club didn’t have any particular project on the plans just then, and they agreed to put together a fund-raiser.  And one new member knew how to do it.  Letty assigned jobs, created the flyers, and produced the tickets for us to sell.  She found a belly dancer who agreed to come with her students and donated her time.  I left on my 2-week vacation and wondered what would happen.   Rotarians and UNA-USA members found auction items, sold tickets, planned the decorations and food and were all there on the warm August evening that we had the fund-raiser.  The Historical Society let us move the tables and chairs to my back yard.   Dr. Rolfe had left for Afghanistan to set up the clinic that was en route, but he got a young man from UCLA to bring his movie to show.

His audio didn’t work with our machine, but the 130 people who came enjoyed the dancing and the food and the ambiance so much that they didn’t really care that the young man had to present “the project’ with no help from the pictures.  When that delightful evening was over we were amazed to find that we had raised about $6,000.00.  Our Rotary had never done anything so big, and the UNA group had never done any fund-raising.  But we had pulled it off.

And then I got the news from Afghanistan.  Dr. Rolfe had gone there to set up the clinic.  He had been sent a map that showed the road that passed a public park and his clinic would be next to the park.  THE ROAD DIDN’T EXIST, AND THE PARK WAS A BOMBED OUT BUILDING!  He had returned to the government official who had given him the information; it was not possible to set up a dental clinic in the desert.  He might have planned for the security of the containers as outside walls, but he needed to be in the town.

The “alternative” site was in town, and he went to measure to see if all four containers would fit on that site.  A young boy came to ask what he was doing.  I can picture Dr. Rolfe explaining how he was building a dental clinic to help the widows and orphans of Afghanistan.  Soon an older man arrived, speaking Farsi and pointing to a few flowers in one corner of the property.  Apparently the local residents thought that the government was making a community garden there.  And the MANY locals arrived.  Dr. Rolfe retreated to talk with the government official who sent the police to defend his position.  The police also had to retreat, and hope for the clinic in that location was dashed.

The Medical School liked the idea of the Dental Clinic and offered land next to the school, but the area was small, and on a cliff overlooking a cemetery.  Dr. Rolfe knew he was defeated.  He called Pakistan to tell them not to unload the shipping containers, but they told him they had already unloaded and inspected everything, and were sending the bill.  But they agreed to send them back to Long Beach where the Americans also had to unload and inspect and bill for their services.  Dr. Rolfe doesn’t yet know if the official he was working with was dishonest or simply inept; but it cost a lot of lost time and money for that failed attempt.

So the containers sat in Long Beach for about a year.  I think storage fees were $500.00 a month.  I urged Dr. Rolfe to send everything to Mexico as it was closer, less expensive, and the Indians there could surely use it.  He wanted to help Afghanistan.

For me, there was the agonizing problem of explaining to the two organizations that the plan had not worked.  I was devastated; a few years before I had solicited funds to bring salt fluoridation to Honduras – only to have the government there want the money – but they weren’t ready to really put it into salt fluoridation as the head of the dental health for the nation was more concerned about dental fluorosis.  I had finally written to all the contributors telling them of the failure in my planning, and asking if providing an AIDS van to get treatment to a group of victims in one of the cities in Honduras would be OK.  Remarkably, no one asked for a return of the money.  And the AIDS van is in Santa Paula, Honduras, providing mobile service to the sick in that city.

So in the fall of 2005, I was confessing to have recommended a program that didn’t look like it was succeeding.   No one screamed at me; we held onto the funds and waited to see what would happen to the project.

Dr. Rolfe does NOT give up easily.  He knew one couple who had come from Afghanistan and was preparing to return there.  But the wife was suddenly diagnosed with cancer, and returning to a country where there is only one dental x-ray machine does not suggest that advanced cancer care can be provided.   They agreed to let the Afghan Dental Relief Project use their home and extended property around it for 3 years.  So in the spring of 2006 Dr. Rolfe again prepared for shipping.  And our Rotary Club and UNA-USA group agreed to provide $4,000.00 to buy another shipping container as now there were many more donations.  We also took a load of dental donations to Santa Barbara and two of us spent a day cleaning the dust off of some beautiful dental equipment that can easily be used to set up a 20 chair clinic for training dentists and/or dental hygienists.  When the shipment was ready to go, the final $2,000.00 was given to the Afghan Dental Relief project with no strings attached.

In June of 2006, the first two containers went to Pakistan again, and the third was sent through Dubai.  Shortly after shipment, I began to get copies of some of Dr. Rolfe’s frantic emails to a variety of people.  The containers had gone through the inspections fine in Pakistan, but when they arrived at the border of Afghanistan, some diligent Afghan official discovered that the Afghan Dental Relief project was not a registered NGO (non-governmental organization) in Afghanistan – only in the United States.  Duty of that quantity of stuff would enrich the Afghan government, but certainly was not in Dr. Rolfe’s budget.  But then, neither was the $200.00 per day that was charged for “storage” out there in the dessert.

Dr. Rolfe had learned that our Rotary Club had helped him.  He had also found a young man who came frequently to the United States, but had a construction business in Kabul.  Jawid Rahimi was doing preparations for placing the containers.  So Jawid and Dr. Rolfe appealed to the Rotary Club of Kabul that is registered as an NGO in Afghanistan.  The old “bill of lading” with the name of the Afghan Dental Relief Project was replaced with a new ‘bill of lading” and on the top of that report is Rotary Club of Kabul.  With that document, the Minister of Economics signed the papers authorizing the shipment come into the country.  But the Minister of Finance was not signing, and Dr. Rolfe had paid over 2 months of storage, and was getting more and more concerned.

I take credit for writing one letter.  I selected some names from the group of people Dr. Rolfe seemed to be writing to.  I hoped some of those I picked were members of the Rotary Club. And I wrote “Dear Rotarians, The Minister of Economics has signed for the dental clinic shipment.  Please go in and tear down the door of that Minister of Finance office and get him to sign those papers.”  Within a week I received a note from Mina Wali, who is a woman and is a past President of the Rotary club of Kabul.  She wrote, “Yesterday I went with all my Rotarians to the Minister of Finance office and he promised he would be singing the documents today.”  He must have “sung’ them as within a week the clinic was in Kabul!!! (I should not make fun of other people’s typos as I make so many, and I can’t write or say a word in Farsi and she was so kind as to get her club organized and to write to me in almost perfect English.)

With the clinic in Kabul, Dr. Rolfe began the back and forth trips to get the clinic there up and working and still manage to keep his office running.  At one point, he hired someone who produced almost nothing on the books, but he and the assistant were paid.  Both were terminated when Dr. Rolfe came back and had to work to produce enough to keep his office going and make money to support the Afghan Dental Relief Project.

In the spring of 2008 with the Kabul Rotary Dental Clinic now working, the UNA-USA San Fernando Valley Chapter asked Dr. Rolfe to come to give a “progress report” about the clinic.  And, again, I asked the Rotary club to participate, and could we do a mini-fundraiser?   They agreed.  One day Suzanne Karbel, one of my staff members, met a woman while waiting in line at a bank and spoke of the project.  Not only did Betsy Norsey recognize my name as her parents were long-time patients, but she had lived for many years in Afghanistan.  She is an artist, and she offered the paintings that she had done of Afghanistan to be used as an art show.

>So we had a luncheon at the China Olive with an incredible group of paintings decorating the room.  Dr. Rolfe came with still photos and movies of the project in Afghanistan.  Rotarian Beth Ullman created postcards and note cards from Betsy’s wonderful paintings for us to sell, and we put together another silent auction so that over $2,500.00 was raised!  And we all now knew that the project was successful and going to make a great difference in Kabul. I left that afternoon to take Betsy home, and three of the Rotarian-UNA-USA members stayed to do all the final clean-up.  One of them remarked, “Isn’t it funny that it is three Jews who are here working for Afghanistan?”  But that is the magic of the UN and the Rotary worlds.

With an additional $1,000.00 donation, we thought we could get a matching grant from Rotary International.  That project took a lot of time – almost a year, but did fizzle out as the Rotary Club of Kabul when it had first begun had done a couple of projects and the people doing them did not know how to handle the paperwork that Rotary International demands.  So for now, that Club cannot do international projects.  BUT THEY GAVE THE PEOPLE OF KABUL A DENTAL CLINIC and that is just the beginning.

The Kabul Rotary Dental Clinic became the meeting place for the Rotary Club, and it is providing dental care 5 days a week with an Afghan dentist – and Dr. Rolfe sometimes visiting.  Dental Assistants are now trained and working full time with the Afghan dentist who works at that clinic, and they will be able to be employed by other dentists in the area.  Two dental hygienists for the U. S. are traveling to Afghanistan to start the first Dental Hygienist class this October!

And, one day this spring, (2009), Dr. Rolfe was in a park in Santa Barbara trying to sell $20.00 toothbrushes to be used to help with the project, and a young man stopped by and said that he thought it would be difficult to raise much money that way.  He gave Dr. Rolfe his card, and asked to be called.  But a while later, without waiting for the call, he phoned to tell Dr. Rolfe that the Santa Barbara Foundation could give him $15,000.00 if ADRP, Inc. could match it.  The $3,500.00 that we had sitting in our Rotary District Foundation was immediately sent to The Afghan Dental Relief Project to help with that grant!! And that grant is to set up the dental technician school.

Because the Bio-Ceramic Laboratory that my husband, Joseph Pampalone, a long-time Rotarian, had run for 40 years, has been inactive for the last years, I made the decision to donate the laboratory equipment and supplies to the Afghan Dental Relief Project.  As the laboratory at one time had employed about 6 people, it had lots of equipment and most of it is in good working order and will be excellent for the Technician School.  This school will be the first dental laboratory in Afghanistan.  Although the benches are bulky, Dr. Rolfe has asked for everything as lumber and even electric saws, etc. are not available in Kabul.  So everything had to be cleaned, packed and Dr. Rolfe will decide what should go to Afghanistan.  It is all in Santa Barbara helping to fill the fourth container that will be sent to Afghanistan.  An American dental technician is now in Afghanistan and is beginning to teach the first dental technician class this month!!

The San Fernando Valley Chapter of UNA-USA, the Mid San Fernando Valley Rotary and all of their members are proud of the work that we have done to help Dr. Rolfe make his dream to help the widows and orphans of Afghanistan come true.

You can read more about this fantastic project at adrpinc.org.   Yes, Dr. Rolfe does still need financial assistance to keep this project going.