About Us
Our Mission
To Dry Creek, “grassroots” means reciprocity, kinship, and getting the job done with passionate collaborators. Since our inception in 2011, we have worked on projects locally and abroad, ranging from kindergarten construction in the flood-prone lowlands of Vietnam to COVID food relief in the slums of Ahmedabad, India as well as at home here in Utah.
Rather than limit our work to a single cause, Dry Creek looks for the right collaborators who use their unique background and expertise to solve problems in their community. Each project leads us in a unique direction, and we are inspired by working together. For an idea of past work, please explore our project pages.
The Hummingbird
We at Dry Creek strive to emulate our logo, the hummingbird, in three ways:
Small size, big capacity. The wings of hummingbirds beat up to 80 times per second and they can tirelessly travel great distances. Every winter, the ruby-throated hummingbird travels 2500 miles from Alaska to Central America in one trip. This feat of incredible strength reminds us at Dry Creek that, even with our small team, we can accomplish great things. Since 2017, Dry Creek has supported school construction and teacher support for a remote Rohingya community in the Arkan State of Myanmar. Myanmar's government has banned international nongovernmental aid to the state and prohibited the Rohingya from traveling outside of a 2 mile radius. Despite this, Dry Creek has worked through our Utah-based collaborator Umar Faruq (who left his village on foot in 2005) to substantively support this community.
Adaptability. Because of their unique ability to fly backwards, sideways, and hover up and down, hummingbirds remind us to stay adaptable and to accept the reality of change with an open heart. Untethered to one singular mission, Dry Creek is able to flexibly allocate resources to causes that need immediate attention. This summer, as the COVID pandemic caused food insecurity for countless people, we were able to respond quickly by organizing food relief for 1,200 families. In November 2020, as flood ravaged much of Vietnam, we nimbly organized disaster relief for the hardest-hit areas.
Heals those most in need In Hopi and Zuni mythology, hummingbirds intervene on behalf of humans, summoning rain in times of drought and famine and restoring vegetation. By creating dozens of after school programs for refugee children, Dry Creek works to nourish communities that are often the most starved of basic necessities.