Donald L. Warnick passed away peacefully on July 5, 2019. Don was my friend, my advisor and my partner. I was honored to be invited to speak at his memorial service. What follows is a condensed version of what I shared:
The term that comes to mind while trying to condense my experience with Don down to a common theme is harmony between realism and idealism. While for the most part realism and idealism are considered absolutist philosophies- in opposition and incompatible, Don embodied a living philosophy of realistic idealism.
Selective in where he put his energy, all-in once convinced, and always with a plan for obtainable results. Not so quick to jump on the band wagon, but once convinced by well-founded arguments, Don would join up, with the activity fully researched and with workable operational plans.
We made a good team. I tend to jump into things and then flounder about learning the ropes. Don tempered my idealism, a balancing which made possible the implementation of those lofty dreams. Personally, I benefited greatly from this process of healthy tension between the ideal and the possible.
Don and I grew up in southern Delaware. Our families attended the Tressler Mennonite Church at Greenwood, so we would see each other most Sundays and during other church and family activities. Don was 13 years older than I, so we didn’t really run in the same circles. I believe he and Mary Ann were chaperons to my MYF group and that he managed a volunteer activity in Ocean City, Maryland where I helped out one summer. I went to Honduras as a volunteer with MCC in 1983, so we basically lost track of each other.
I ended up stretching out my stay in Central America, relocating to El Salvador in 1986 and, well staying there until this year. Once the Salvadoran Civil War ended, in 1992, my parents were finally able to visit. Don and Mary Ann had become traveling companions with my parents, and once my father died in 1995, they began to accompany my mother on her visits to El Salvador.
It was on these visits that Don and I began to talk. And we did talk, for hours and hours on technology, philosophy, human nature and how to change the world. I was in the process of building my business Perkin Lenca, when this began. Don understood the goal of community development ingrained within the enterprise and jumped in with support- advise, business sense and financial help.
Don and Mary Ann continued to visit, every year for the past some 22 or 23 years, became part of our family, and part of our goals and vision for El Salvador.
In 2007, we decided that while a business model as an example is good, we needed to improve the quality of education within the region to have a lasting positive impact on the community.
We invited a small group of people from El Salvador and from the USA, founded Perkin Educational Opportunities Foundation, and started the Amun Shea Center for Integrated Development, a small private school in the heart of what once was a major war theatre in El Salvador and what today is a major contributor to irregular immigration to the USA in search of opportunity.
Our vision has been to build a model for relevant rural education, linking education to social, economic and cultural development. Once developed and implemented in our school, then sharing the methodology with the local public school system. Presently, we are in the fourth year of an official agreement with the Salvadoran Ministry of Education to replicate our educational model in 7 nearby public schools. We are also training the public educational supervisors for the entire province of Morazan.
Our goal is to create conditions that lessen the felt need to look for opportunity elsewhere. Irregular or forced immigration begins with losing hope at home, the solution lies with bringing hope and a sense of future back home.
I managed the operational side of PEOF in El Salvador. Don covered the state-side activities of finances, reporting, donor communication and legal status. Great team-work and impossible to carry off without this dual management.
I am very grateful to Don, his patient honing of ideas into reality, his grounding and participation in dreams, and something which I confess to only recently discovering- his ability to make me believe that the entire project was my creation. I missed that completely.
Realistic idealism? Working quietly on root causes of problems, building up others, making it doable, little rhetoric, much patience, a lot of effort and plenty of wit and humor. On a deeper level, building unity over polarity. Don had a deep concern over the current level of division and polarity in our society. He did not fuss over it as some things need to run their course, but I do believe it was his one un-resolved issue. I will miss those conversations.
I do convey condolences from the staff of PEOF and Amun Shea in El Salvador. They held Don in much respect and admiration.
As to our staff at Perkin Lenca, Don and Mary Ann have always been family. Deeply saddened by Don’s passing, Gloria, Rosibel, Reina, Jessica, Lorenzo, Alex, Arely, Aracely and Elsa, on behalf of the whole team, send much love and concern for Mary Ann and family. Silvia, even 15 years after leaving Perkin Lenca, remembers Don and Mary Ann with affection and sends her love.
Thank you Mary Ann, for sharing Don with us. Ena and myself, along with our children, consider you to be family.
Thank you Derek and Amy for sharing your father, his counsel and wisdom.
And I especially want to thank the Troyer and Warnick children for sharing their grandfather with my children.
Thank you
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21st Century Introspective 