Hola! My name is Pam Schiefelbein and I'm creating this fundraising campaign to help my friend and fellow Peace Corps volunteer raise funds to bring his wife and son to the United States from Ecuador, where Eric lived and worked for 30 years after Peace Corps. Below is just a small part of Eric's story. I hope you will consider helping with any size donation. Eric and his family deserve to be together.

Eric developed a life-long interest in nature and nature conservation at the age of six while recovering from second and third-degree burns on over 60% of his body from a housefire that took the lives of his one-year-old brother and four-year-old cousin. His experience is described in an essay he wrote, "Aquarium In A Dixie Cup". Eric grew up in Northern California surrounded by the Shasta Trinity National Forest and Trinity Alps Wilderness and spent a lot of time hiking, backpacking and working for the Youth Conservation Corps, US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.

Eric studied Journalism at Cal Poly Humboldt and completed his Bachelor´s degree at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont. He completed internships at the Charles Darwin Research Station in The Galapagos Islands and Saba, Netherland Antilles.

In 1990, Eric entered Peace Corps and served three years in Ecuador helping to write management plans and develop interpretative infrastructure in three protected areas. In 1993, Eric completed his Peace Corps service and began work as the Director of the Pro Forest Foundation, which administered a 15,000-acre protected forest, Cerro Blanco, on the outskirts of the city of Guayaquil. In 2018, Eric completed his work at Cerro Blanco and spent two years in Covid lockdown in Guayaquil.

In 2020, Eric came to Ely, Nevada for work until mid-2021. Meanwhile, his wife and son remain in Ecuador pending the US Government issuing an immigration visa for his wife, Sonia, an Ecuadorian citizen. Their son, Eric William has special needs and suffered a major medical crisis in July 2021. A formal petition to the US Consulate in Guayaquil to expedite the visa request was denied.

Eric is in the process of finding a permanent job, having done some short-term consultancy work in Bolivia in the interim. The burden of maintaining two households with no closure in sight for the visa for his wife has left Eric in dire financial straits and he is reaching out to friends and former Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV) for help.

The funds raised will be used for immigration attorneys and other expenses involved with managing two households and getting his wife and son to the United States.

Thank you for reading Eric's story and, if you can find it in your heart to help reunite him with his family, please do so. ❌⭕