Centralight

redefiningcommunity BY DAN DIGMANN Plumstead uses running to build bridges For most people in the United States, running across Ethiopia to raise funds and awareness for the educational needs of families living there would qualify as an international mission trip. But for northern Michigan resident Norm Plumstead, '95, making such a journey this past January felt more like he was helping members of his own community. Plumstead, first vice president for Honor Bank in Traverse City, was one of 16 runners who logged 253 miles in 12 days across southern Ethiopia. The group raised more than $208,000 to build three new schools within some of the most impoverished areas of the African country's coffee-growing regions. This ambitious effort – Run Across Ethiopia – was a project of On the Ground Global, a nonprofit agency established through the Traverse City-based fair trade coffee roaster Higher Grounds Coffee. On the Ground boasts a track record of building wells, medical clinics and schools in fair trade communities throughout the world. "I think it's a matter of how you define your community," Plumstead says. "It can be your neighbor, and if you define it as people you interact with every day, then that also includes the farmer who grows the beans for the coffee you drink." When Plumstead first was presented the idea to participate in Run Across Ethiopia, the thought of running an average of more than 20 miles a day for 12 days didn't intimidate him. After all, he's run a dozen marathons and in recent years has elevated to ultra-marathons and has completed a 50K, three 50-mile races and a 100-mile race. His personal best marathon time of three hours and seven minutes, which he ran in the annual Charlevoix Marathon, demonstrated measured improvement from when he ran his first race in 1998. Norm Plumstead, second row left, keeps pace with an Ethiopian youth who is guiding Plumstead's running team though the African countryside. 24 centralight summer '11

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