Deeply Rooted: St. Augustine-based nonprofit lifts Nicaraguan families out of poverty

Six years ago Nathan Pendleton of St. Augustine moved to Nicaragua with a backpack and two duffel bags.

He had felt a calling to help poor people, to feed starving kids, in a developing nation. Most of his friends thought he was crazy — although one believer, his mother, committed $600 a month to his mission — but Pendleton knew he was on the right path.

He was holding up his end of a deal he made with God a few years earlier when he was a "high-functioning alcoholic and drug addict struggling to keep my life together," he said. "If he fixed my life I would do whatever he wanted me to. … From that moment on I was never the same and left a life of drugs and alcohol behind."

The nonprofit Pendleton subsequently founded in Jinotega, Nicaragua — called Deeply Rooted Grounds because initial fundraising was through selling locally grown coffee — now has a 12-person staff, a Northeast Florida-based board of directors and a $300,000 annual budget. It feeds about 9,000 children a day and provides access to clean water, afterschool and maternal health programs, therapy for special-needs children and new homes, among other things.

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"Studies show that we can increase the overall health of a family by 70% simply by getting them up out of the dirt," Pendleton said.

Pendleton is proud of the accomplishments so far but said the work is "only just beginning." The nonprofit is renting space in three locations but hopes to buy a $600,000 property to be a permanent site. The 10-acre property has a conference center, commercial kitchen, baseball field, office space, warehouse, pool and room for a therapy center and volunteer housing.

"I cannot take credit for everything. I have an amazing staff in Nicaragua that are nothing short of superheroes," he said. "They deserve the credit far more than I do," he said. "For me personally, nothing makes me happier than to see them succeed and do it while helping those in need."

A calling from God, guided along the way

Colorado-born Pendleton, 41, is a four-year Army veteran who served in the 82nd Airborne Division as a combat medic. He later landed in Jacksonville where his sisters Elizabeth Faour and Rebekah Davis moved after they finished college. For eight years he worked as an anesthesia technician at Baptist Health and obtained a bachelor's degree in business from the University of North Florida in 2008.

Then Nicaragua came into his vision.

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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.

"I saw how these children were living — tin shacks with dirt floors, no food, no running water — and God just overwhelmed my heart," he said.

So Pendleton took several short-term mission trips and volunteered for multiple organizations, one of which helped women at risk, others ran orphanages. After his commitment to the landscaping business ended, he spent six months in Nicaragua working for a ministry that had a coffee farm and a school for children who lived at trash dumps.

"It was during those six months God called me to serve poor people in Jinotega," he said.

Before his full-time move, Pendleton consulted with many people, including a pastor who was a missionary in Brazil for 12 years. The pastor suggested he found a nonprofit "so that people had a way to support my vision and work and receive tax-deductible benefits as well," he said. "He filed all the paperwork needed."

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.

"Love has to look like something," he said, and Deeply Rooted Grounds' way of "loving others looks like food, houses and caring for abandoned children and children with severe physical disabilities."

When they learned of his plans, all but two of Pendleton's friends and family members back in the U.S. "thought I had really lost my mind," he said. "After all, who goes from being an alcoholic and drug addict to feeding starving kids in a Third World country?"

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.

"Everyone else had their doubts and rightfully so," he said. "Today it is clear to all of them."

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."

"It was incredible to see the life change and the joy in his heart. … I not only could hear it but see it," said Dosio, who had experience in Central America in church-sponsored outreach projects, including feeding children and drilling water wells for remote villages. "He said he had just been to Nicaragua and God broke his heart for the people. We started brainstorming … We never dreamed of what might come to today."

Dosio and his two siblings grew up poor, raised by a single mother, so he sees himself when he sees the children the nonprofit serves.

"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."

Part of Dosio's job is increasing awareness. He created the Jungle Run, a 2k, 5k and 10k fun run in Nocatee in March to benefit outreach work in Nicaragua and Honduras. And he connects the nonprofit to area churches and individuals.

"I have had so many parents share how they want their kids to be a part of the mission so their kids can see what’s happening," Dosio said. "It opens their eyes and … helps kids realize to not take for granted what they have. That even they can do something."

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Pendleton has not only been building his nonprofit while in Nicaragua, but building his family. He met and married his wife, Maria Celest, there and they have two sons, Isaac, 4, and Jeremiah, 2.

"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."

One of the early fundraisers, selling Nicaraguan coffee by subscription, "has been difficult of late due to economic sanctions" imposed by the United Nations after political unrest in the country, he said.

"Shipping single orders is no longer possible so we had to switch to using churches as [bulk] distribution points for our coffee," he said. "The coffee has potential to become a good source of funds … but has yet to materialize as such. All of our growth and donor base has come organically. Word of mouth, social media, speaking engagements and missions teams."

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The nonprofit's first fundraising event will be in 2023. Pendleton is hoping corporate sponsors will help purchase the property envisioned as a permanent base for Deeply Rooted Grounds. About $300,000 of the purchase price has already been raised, but another $300,000 is needed, as well as $150,000 for needed renovations.

"I truly feel overwhelmed with gratitude first to God for entrusting this mission to my hands," Pendleton said. "I couldn’t do it without him guiding me every step of the way. There is so much need and so much to be done. We can only do as much as we are given. I am proud to see the organization grow, and the lives we touch every day keeps me motivated and moving forward."

bcravey@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4109

DEEPLY ROOTED GROUNDS

To donate, sponsor a child, schedule a volunteer mission trip or get more information, contact the nonprofit at 120 Palencia Village Drive, #C-105 PMB 134, St. Augustine, FL 32095; (904) 770-6304; info@deeplyrootedgrounds.org or go to deeplyrootedgrounds.org or facebook.com/deeplyrootedground.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: St. Augustine-based Deeply Rooted Grounds helps Nicaraguan families