By David Stoneberg
STAFF WRITER
Thursday, September 18, 2008 12:29 AM PDT
A native of Croatia asked for 10 seconds of silence Thursday afternoon for the victims of 9/11 on the event’s seventh anniversary.
A few of those at the event, including Miljenko “Mike” Grgich’s grandson, Noel Grgich Shipman, who is 3 1/2, weren’t alive in 2001; the rest of the 30 or so people attending stood in silence, remembering that day seven years ago when the world as we knew it changed. The silence ended when Grgich said “amen.”
David Stoneberg photo Noel Grgich Shipman tosses a coin into the “Roots of Peace” fountain established by his grandfather at the Rutherford winery. With him are Nathan and Ruth Staley, both from Napa.
That was the only solemn part of the ceremony honoring Grgich and “Roots of Peace” founder Heidi Kuhn for their efforts to remove landmines from war-torn countries around the world, notably Grgich’s native Croatia.
It also marked the formal unveiling of the “Roots of Peace” fountain at Rutherford’s Grgich Hills Cellars, a donation of $25,000 to the “Roots of Peace Penny Campaign” and the kickoff of the Napa Valley Penny Campaign, led by Merik Mulcahy of Napa’s Justin-Siena High School. He said he was joined by ASB presidents and representatives from all five Napa Valley high schools, including St. Helena’s Lily Rada and Noemi Plaza-Sanchez, and Calistoga’s Eleno Nunez and Angie Mewhorter.
Mulcahy said the local goal is to continue the Napa Valley Penny Campaign “one schoolhouse and one vineyard at a time.” He challenged the Napa Valley community “to match the richness of our wine with the richness of our hearts” to collect even more than the 25 million pennies already gathered.
Kyleigh Kuhn, daughter of “Roots of Peace” founder Heidi Kuhn, was 13 when she traveled to Croatia with her mother in 2000. She founded the national “Penny for Peace” campaign to clear landmines and establish soccer fields in Croatia, Afghanistan and Angola.
Presenting a $25,000 check to Heidi Kuhn and Grgich was Stephen Ganyard, deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. State Department. He said the oversize check represented tax dollars at work and added the State Department is involved in cleaning up minefields from 40 countries around the world. He added public/private partnerships are critical in this work and said the efforts to clear landmines in Croatia “stand out above all the other efforts.”
Speaking next to the circular fountain, Grgich said, “I believe ‘Roots of Peace’ can do everything with your help. We need everybody in the world to defeat bombs that destroy houses and landmines that destroy people’s families and lives.” The efforts to remove landmines from Croatia and replace them with vineyards “will make people safer and happier when they drink the wines.”
The winemaker said he named the fountain the “Roots of Peace Fountain” and that the coins tossed in will help “make peace in the world.”
Also addressing the crowd and thanking Kuhn and Grgich for their efforts was Ante Barbir, Consul General of the Republic of Croatia, who said, “It is my great please to celebrate the ‘Roots of Peace’ fountain.” He added it is dedicated to “many outstanding and dedicated people. First and foremost of these,” he said, “is Heidi Kuhn, who thinks of those less fortunate than herself.”
He said Croatia, which contains 4 million people and is the size of West Virginia, is “almost free of landmines.” Barbir added that the cultural links between America and Croatia go back to 1783, when the country, then part of the Habsburg Empire, was the first to recognize America’s independence from England.
Croatia declared its independence in June 1991 and is a “leading contributor to peace efforts around the world and soon will be a full member of NATO and the European Union,” Barbir said.
Recognizing and thanking Grgich, Barbir said the winemaker never forgot his roots, even when he traveled to America to fulfill his dream of making wine, something he could not do in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which later became Croatia. “I wish you the best of success in hard work to rid Croatia of landmines,” Barbir said.
A longtime supporter of “Roots of Peace,” Grgich first joined the organization on a U.S. State Department mission in May 2000, when he visited the children of Dragalic School near Zagreb and raised the initial funds to remove landmines from the adjacent Medair Vineyards. After Thursday’s ceremony, Grgich said the vineyards were already planted with sauvignon blanc, chardonnay and gewurztraminer before the landmines had been removed. “There are 2 million landmines in Croatia,” he declared, “and nobody knows where they are. Mostly, they’ve been removed, but war was everywhere.” Last summer, a wildfire near Dubrovnik, helped with the effort to remove landmines, he added. “As the fire raged, it touched off the landmines,” he said.
