s an increasing number of wary Americans retreat behind gated communities, one Alpharetta businessman is on a personal mission to stop the United States from becoming a "gated country."

"I want to help the Atlanta community engage the world," said Walter Dean, vice president of the Atlanta Committee for CARE, the international relief agency.

"If we can spend $200 million so that we can see a fish on Peachtree, surely there are some philanthropists in this city that recognize that there are human beings that need food and clean water."

In trying to persuade friends and neighbors to look beyond Atlanta's borders when they share their wealth, Dean is asking the metro area's residents to participate in a global venture of which he has been a part for much of his adult life.

For more than 10 years before he became involved with CARE, the owner and president of Alpharetta-based Dean Machinery International Inc. financed several private humanitarian projects in Africa.

This week, Dean is visiting the Siaya district in western Kenya, where two village wells are being dug thanks to his latest donations. And he has taken his family with him.

Introduction for children

It will be the first time his children -- Meredith, 10, and Harrison, 6 -- are seeing life in Africa, beyond the vivid photographs of their parents' 1988 honeymoon that line the stairwell of their Alpharetta home.

"I want to show them that they have responsibility to the world and not just to Alpharetta," Dean said before the family left last week. "I'm anxious to share it with them and hopefully ignite their interest."

His wife, father, mother, sister and brother-in-law also are on the trip.

Dean said he hopes they'll be as shocked as he was after his first trip to Kenya 20 years ago, when he spent a year teaching at the Ekambuli Secondary School in a small village in the East African nation as part of a program run by the Presbyterian Church. Those former students will be among those his family will be meeting for the first time this week.

"It was a political awakening for me," said the native of Asheville, N.C. "It showed me a part of the world and people living in ways I had never imagined."

Unusual career turn

Dean returned to the United States determined to pursue a career in international development. But when he left Georgia State University in the late 1980s after studying foreign relations, the Cold War was winding down, the United States had dramatically scaled back its involvement in Africa -- and he couldn't find a job.

"I had prepared for this type of work, and then they weren't hiring," he said. "It was a very disappointing, low time in my life."

It didn't last long. Dean soon worked out an arrangement with the British machinery company that had employed him throughout his time in graduate school.

"They offered to sell me the company," he recalled. "I didn't have any money, but I promised to pay them back out of future profits within the next four years."

He paid off the debt in two years. Then, he began making private donations to the villages in Kenya where he once taught.

"I was able to use that as the fuel for driving my international development work," he said.

Dean's strong involvement in philanthropy involves more than just writing checks. Since returning from his one-year teaching stint in 1984, he has maintained contact with many of his students.

And when they need help, he tries to give it: money for new computers, pews for their churches, several houses for their families and even a car to help start a taxi service.

And working closely with CARE since 1999 has given him the perfect chance to expand the scale of his personal effort to make a difference in the world.

The money he donated for the two wells, for example, is part of a larger CARE program to help communities around the world construct and manage low-cost water and sanitation systems.

Giving people 'bootstraps'

The Lala and Udamai villages, which will be getting the new wells, are near Musalaba, where he once taught. And the problem that his wells will help solve is also a familiar one for Dean.

"Having lived there, and having become sick from that water myself, I've known that it was a problem for quite some time," he said.

Though Lake Victoria, the world's second-largest freshwater lake, is nearby, the water there contains harmful toxins that make it unsafe to drink. Other sources of water close to the villages are also contaminated.

The new wells will provide clean water free of contamination. Everyone who wants to use the wells will pay whatever they can, Dean said, and the money will go into a community fund that will be used to provide low-interest loans for fertilizer and seed.

"You've got to give people bootstraps so they can lift themselves up," he said. "We're not giving them money; we're giving them tools that will help them become self-sufficient."

The Dean family departed for Kenya despite the U.S. government's warning of increased terrorist activity in that country. Last week, the U.S. Embassy was closed after the terrorist threat level was raised to "high."

Walter Dean said that the timing for the trip was right. But he and his wife, Laura, rewrote their wills before the family took off for Kenya.

And 20 years after he left the Ekambuli school's classrooms, Dean continues to teach. For his children, there have been constant Kiswahili lessons.

They've learned everyday greetings: Jambo means "hello" and kwaheri means "goodbye." Meredith recently named a new stuffed rhinoceros Kifaru, or "rhinoceros."

In Kenya, Dean said, he hopes his children will learn the meaning of another word: tunza, which means "care."

Learning lessons firsthand

They've seen that word before -- on T-shirts stacked beside the pile of family passports on the floor of their father's home office. The shirts will be presented as gifts to villagers.

But Dean said there are some things his children won't learn until they see Kenya for themselves.

"Every day, there are courageous, brave people who work for CARE. That's something I want my children to see," he said. "It's exciting that they've reached an age that I can show them things that I can't explain to them."

Dean said that his parents passed along a similar message to him as a child -- and that he hopes to teach them a few things on this trip as well.

His father, Rayburn Dean, also of Asheville, has received the United Way's Lifetime of Dedication to Charity and Volunteerism award there.

"I learned a lot from my parents about giving of time and money," he said. "I want them to get involved with something that I've done, and try to get their support."