Their heartbreaking ordeal caused them to seek something new with their lives. A few months later, in July 1999, they left Grapevine, their home of 20 years, and moved to Kenya to begin missionary work.
“I was working for Oracle, which is a big software company,” said 51-year-old Steve. “After he died, we just felt like: ‘We need to do something different.’”
On Dec. 6, Steve Peifer was honored live by CNN with its Championing Children award as part of CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute.
The award came about as recognition of the work he and his wife do in Kenya, where they operate programs that feed 11,000 schoolchildren and help to build solar-powered computer labs for the children in Kijabe. The couple also work at a missionary academy in Kenya.
Award recipients were chosen by a 15-member panel from18 finalists (three finalists for each of six categories), selected from more than 7,000 viewer nominations in 80 countries, according to the CNN Web site. Peifer also was the online viewers’ choice.
Peifer, who has never had cable television, wasn’t aware of his nomination until he received a phone call informing him that he had been named a finalist.
“I feel kind of astonished that they would do something like that,” he said. “I’m an old, old guy, and the award was presented to me by Tyra Banks, who kissed me when she gave it.”
“When I gave my acceptance speech, I said, ‘The odds of a guy like me getting kissed by Tyra Banks is the same as an asteroid striking the Earth in the next 15 minutes. Everybody duck!’” he said.
Peifer began the programs in Kenya after seeing the effects on children that the scarcity of food and resources can have.
“The dropout rate in Kenya is about 50 percent, and most Kenyan kids only eat one meal a day,” he said. “What we thought we’d do is start a feeding program where we’ve provided food to schools for lunches.”
“I can feed a kid for a month for $1.47,” he said. “We had the World Health Organization give us the menu, and we’ve met lots of their nutritional requirements of the day.”
The food consists of corn as well as beans cooked with oil, a dish called githeri, a staple dish in Kenya, according to Peifer’s Web site, www.kenyakidscan.org.
Since its introduction in 2002, not only has the dropout rate been reduced to nearly zero in those schools, but hundreds of children have enrolled in school as a result of the feeding program, Peifer said.
He also helps to build solar-powered computer centers near Kenyan schools to promote computer skills, such as using Microsoft Office.
“We take shipping containers and recycle them, and we build solar computer centers out of them,” he said.
The money he received from CNN as part of the award should help build three more computer centers in addition to the 10 that have already been constructed, he said.
“It’s a wonderful thing to see how kids pick up on it so fast, and it’s a very good thing,” he said. “We hire the teachers and we pay the teachers. We have Kenyans teaching Kenyans. It’s just worked out well so far.”
Peifer is also the subject of a book titled Your Pal Steve, which is a compilation of e-mail correspondences that he had written from Kenya.
All the profits from the book go toward his programs, he said.
Steve and Nancy Peifer decided to adopt 5-month-old Kenyan twins six years ago. The adoption was finalized two years later on March 4, which would have been Stephen’s birthday.
“It was one of those amazing coincidences that kind of lets you know where you’re supposed to be,” Peifer said.
The Peifer family has been living in the Mid-Cities for five months, to help their oldest son, J.T., 18, get settled into college. He graduated from a Kenyan high school in July.
During their stay in Texas, Peifer has spoken at several local churches. Their other children, Matthew, 16, and the twins Ben and Kate — now first-graders — attend Covenant Christian Academy in Colleyville.
The family will return to Kenya at the end of December for two and a half years.
For more information, or to make a donation, see www.kenyakidscan.org.
“I always tell people if they say, ‘Would you rather have a visit or the cash?’ I say ‘visit,’ because if you see the Third World, it will change you forever. You just can’t be the same person after you see a hungry kid like that,” Peifer said.