Greg Mortenson, a humanitarian and renown author, will visit Paly this Friday at 10:40 a.m. in the theater to raise awareness about poverty, extremism, and his plan to combat each with education in regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. He will also sign and sell his book, Three Cups of Tea, a New York Bestseller.

Fourth period teachers signed up their classes in advance to attend the showcase; however, other members of the Paly community are welcome to attend.

During Mortenson’s childhood in Tanzania, he had a very close relationship to his sister Christa who suffered from epilepsy. After she died of a seizure, he decided to dedicate a climb of K2, a mountain on the border of Pakistan and China, to her. He began his climb in 1993 but never reached the top: he got lost and was taken care of by Korphe, a small village in the mountainous region of Afghanistan. He promised to return and build a school for the village to show his gratitude.

Since then, Mortenson has established over 61 schools in rural and unstable regions of Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan. The schools he has built provide education to over 25,000 children, including 14,000 girls.

To aid in the process of building these schools, Mortenson, along with donors, established the Central Asia Institute (CAI) as well as Pennies for Peace, CAI’s sister organization. Both organizations support the cause of improving education throughout the unstable areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pennies for Peace encourages children to support schools by donating small amounts of money to the cause.

Kepler’s Bookstore has played a large role in booking tours for Mortenson in the Bay Area, especially in high schools including Paly and Notre Dame High School.Kepler’s partner school program allows high schools such as Paly to keep 10% of the proceeds from all of Mortenson’s books sales made at Paly after his speech.

“We have an active program for schools and we send authors to schools on a weekly basis,” said Jean Forstner, director of the community partner program at Kepler’s. “We felt that Three Cups of Tea was a great book and have been promoting it since his first tour.”