Building Peace Ep. 1:
Partners in Stone
SUBSCRIBE
In our
last episode of Building Peace – the first in our new series documenting the Peace Corps Park journey – we told you about a landmark donation from Reed Hastings and took you to the shop floor of our fabrication partner to show you where those contributions go.
Today I want to introduce you, properly, to that partner,
Quarra Stone Company, because they are pretty special.
They would have to be, to justify the logistical and financial burden of shipping ten 40,000-lb blocks of granite halfway across the country from Atlanta, Ga. to Madison, Wis., just to send them all the way back to Washington D.C. for installation.
Lead designer Larry Kirkland had not previously worked with Quarra – nor with any other robotic carving partner – but the team’s hope to produce the new federal memorial entirely in the U.S. inspired him to find the best of what this country had to offer.
“I knew of no hand-carving studio in the United States that could do this,” says Kirkland, who has worked almost exclusively with experts in Carrara, Italy in his long career. “So we began to have a dialogue with Quarra and they showed us some of the things that they were working on with these digital robotic carving tools.”
Quarra's robotic CNC milling can achieve geometries and tolerances that most fabricators simply cannot touch. And where the machines reach their limits, their craftspeople take over by hand, finishing the stone the way it has always been finished: with skill, patience, and care.
Jim Durham, President of Quarra Stone Company, says he actively seeks out projects that explore the edge of what’s possible.
“Our idea here at Quarra is that we like to be challenged by the most difficult and complex geometry, and a good project for us is one that starts out with someone saying, ‘can you really even do that?’,” Durham said. “Then we have a pretty good idea that that might be a good fit for us and our capabilities.”
The result will be granite worthy of what it represents.
Glenn A. Blumhorst
Chief Advancement Officer
Peace Corps Commemorative Foundation
President and CEO, National Peace Corps Association (2013-22)
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, Guatemala (1988-91)
GBlumhorst@PeaceCorpsCommemorative.org
DONATE
Latest Contributors
We gratefully thank and acknowledge the following supporters, who have made donations and/or pledges
since April 30, 2026:
* Indicates new gift in addition to previous contributions
Explore the full donor wall here
$10,000 - $19,999
Anonymous
$5,000 - $9,999
Dan Dayton
Karen K. Davis
Charles Hirschman, Jr.
$1,000 - $4,999
Robin Berrington
Chevron Global Community Fund
John L. Duenes and Dr. June Chen, PhD*
Dennis Lucey*
Frank Yates*
Other gifts to $999
Ralph Archung*
Jim Caffrey*
James Cannon
Joseph Doherty
Lawrence Eicher*
Joan Grant*
Michael Hirsh*
David Jolivette
Andrea Kruse*
David Lauzon
William Piatt*
Abigail Rome
Anne Zahorik Shapiro*
Sheri Stonier-Montoya*
Peter von Mertens
PEACE CORPS PARK SUSTAINERS
(Contributions from monthly recurring donors)
Sue Hoyt Aiken
Ellen Davis-Zapata
Luis Garzon-Negreiros
Cynda H. McMahon
Marty Mueller
Nancy Nuechterlein
Jessica Rogers
James Salvatore
James D Wagner
DONATE
PeaceCorpsCommemorative.org
PEACE CORPS COMMEMORATIVE FOUNDATION
5636 Connecticut Avenue, NW Ste 42143
Washington, DC 20015
The Peace Corps Commemorative Foundation is the trade name of the Peace Corps Foundation,
a District of Columbia 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
EIN: 01-0554700
