Six years ago, Nathan Pendleton moved from Northeast Florida to Nicaragua to help the poor. He has since built a nonprofit and a family.
Pendleton was a St. Augustine-based boat captain when a friend and his wife traveled to the Central American country to foster and then adopt two children. He managed their landscaping business during their six-month trip and then visited them there as well.
Pendleton chose the name Deeply Rooted Grounds, he said, because his Nicaraguan coffee connection would be part of the fundraising. The name is also based on a Biblical reference: Ephesians 3:17,"so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith — that you will be rooted and grounded in love," he said.
The believers were his late mother Vicki Sterling Pendleton, who died this year after being his first donor, and his sister's husband, Doug Faour, who is a board member.Financial planner Clinton Dosio, Deeply Rooted Grounds' locally based chief operations officer, met Pendleton when both attended Trinity Baptist Church in Jacksonville. Pendleton had been in a"rough spot," Dosio said, but"God radically changed his life.
"I want these kids to know that there is hope. That God loves them and also the people in the U.S. have a heart for them too," he said."There is nothing more profound to these kids when they hear that you came all the way from the U.S. to spend time with them and they are valuable, that they matter."
"We live and work in Nicaragua full time," he said."We come to the States a couple weeks every year for fundraising activities. Our board of directors are all local to Northeast Florida where most of our support is raised."
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