By John Leary ‘96

Planting the Seeds

Some people ask me how I went from a Jesuit high school in Maryland to reforesting entire regions in Africa. The answer isn’t one moment, but many small ones — rooted in community, service, and teamwork.

I didn’t leave Georgetown Prep with a blueprint for global reforestation. What I left with was something more valuable: a foundation of values, skills, and relationships that shaped how I see the world and respond to its challenges.

🎨 Act I: The Color of Trees

I’ve never seen the world quite like everyone else—literally. I’m colorblind, which led to some frustrating moments in high school.

Each morning started with the dreaded task of matching socks. In my dimly lit room, telling black from blue or brown was nearly impossible. I’d think I had a match, only to step into the harsh fluorescent lights at school and realize—yet again—I was wearing mismatched socks.

St. Patrick’s Day was even trickier. While my classmates confidently wore bright green, I stood in front of my closet guessing. Green, brown, and orange all looked the same to me. My best bet? Pick the most colorful shirt or tie and hope green was in the mix. It rarely worked. Someone would always ask, “Where’s your green?” and I’d look down, deflated.

But what I couldn't see in color, I’ve learned to see in people—in service, in restored landscapes, and in the vibrant life that emerges when we care for each other and the Earth.

🏫 Act II: Lessons Beyond the Classroom

At Prep, I learned more than academics. I learned to see the world in ways that go far beyond what color and sight alone can reveal.

Mr. Quinn, our charismatic art teacher, once played his own safari recordings — wild animal sounds from Africa that electrified the classroom. It was the first time I glimpsed the continent not as a distant land, but as a living, breathing place. He opened the door to imagination. It would take me decades to walk through it.

Mr. Maczynski taught government, though what stuck with me wasn’t the political system so much as the skills he built in us: how to stand up, speak clearly, work a room, and make a case. These were the real tools of civic life — tools I now use daily in boardrooms, village meetings, and international forums.

Father Gancayco came to visit our class one day and spoke with radiant joy about a day spent in service. He described how deeply satisfying — and deeply exhausting — it is to help others all day long. That vision planted something in me I couldn’t yet name.

Julie Collins, our religion teacher, emanated a purpose of caring and cultivated in me a belief that we are all connected to something bigger. Something larger than ourselves. Something that today lives in the roots of my organization Mother Trees.

Nancy Perry gave me artistic confidence and an ability to paint what I wanted to see on a blank canvas. When I sold my first painting senior year, she removed color as an obstacle from my life.

All of this — the inspiration, the skills, the sense of purpose — eventually led me far from the Prep hallways and deep into the heart of Africa where I have worked directly in fifteen countries. 

🌾 Act III: The Ground Beneath My Feet

When I first arrived in Kaffrine, Senegal, as a Peace Corps volunteer, I knew a few things about agriculture, but Gueye Cisse, my Peace Corps homestay mom for two years, knew the land. She guided me in my initial weeks getting oriented with the community. I followed her to the fields and tried to keep up.

Her family had cleared their land to grow peanuts as a cash crop, but over time, that decision had stripped the soil of life. Working together, we began to restore the landscape — not through handouts, but through hard-earned trust, shared labor, and a new vision of agriculture.

That vision — growing forest gardens — now reaches hundreds of thousands of farmers across Africa. It’s not just tree planting. It’s a regenerative food system that grows healthier food, sustainably and regeneratively. It includes composting, mulching, water management, and crop diversification. Farmers grow food for their families, produce for market, and fodder for livestock — all while restoring the land.

Our work at Mother Trees is helping achieve two of the UN’s most ambitious Sustainable Development Goals: No Poverty and Zero Hunger. We’ve seen food insecurity drop from 83% to 14% after just one year, and virtually disappear after two. Families once desperate to send their sons abroad in search of work now see a future on their own land.

🌳 Act IV: A Billion Trees and a Brother in the Work

Omar welcomed me into his home when I was a volunteer — and became one of the first to plant forest gardens with me. Today, Omar leads our programs in Senegal and trains the next generation of community leaders.

Omar had never set foot inside a school — not a single day of formal education. But he had a mind as sharp as anyone I’d ever met, and a heart big enough to carry a whole community forward.

To watch Omar — once a farmer with no education, now leading a national program to restore landscapes — is one of the greatest honors of my life. It’s not just a professional achievement. It’s a friendship rooted in respect, shared vision, and two decades of side-by-side work.

Through our work, Omar has ended hunger for thousands of his neighbors, and it is a heart-warming privilege to visit the communities we’ve helped and not just meet the families face-to-face, but to see and track their progress over the years as kids start to go to school and huts get converted into permanent houses.

There’s a saying I often hear in Senegal when people express gratitude for the change they’ve experienced through our program:
 

The rabbit who eats the berry on the ground thanks the bird who knocked it down.

Our program has planted over 263 million trees and helped over 300,000 people — and all of this is possible because I met Omar. It’s as if the universe orchestrated our meeting so that we could fulfill a higher purpose. 

🌎 Carrying the Colors Forward

The world faces enormous challenges — deforestation, hunger, climate change — and they can feel impossibly distant. But I believe Prep taught us something vital: that real change starts with a small group of people working together. And that’s where we all come in.

What I couldn’t see in color back then, I’ve come to see in people — in the richness of service, in the beauty of restored landscapes, and in the vibrant life that returns when we take care of each other and the Earth.

Whether it’s mentoring or coaching youth, being green in your neighborhood, getting your business involved in philanthropy, or yes, joining me and planting a billion trees — you have a role to play.

You don’t need to go halfway around the world to make an impact. But if you do, bring what Prep gave us: discipline, imagination, courage, and a team-first mindset.

✅ Ready to join us on the road to a billion trees?

Visit MotherTrees.org to learn more, follow our Earth Day Campaign on Instagram @_mothertrees_, or contact John to get involved.