The Saloon

A nonprofit bar

The Saloon opened on U Street in 2000, a second life for a Georgetown bar of the same name that closed in 1994. It looks like an old-fashioned saloon because it is one: long wooden bar, brick walls, a few house rules about sitting down and talking to the people you came with.

What makes it unusual is where the money goes. The owner, Kamal Jahanbein, who everyone calls Commy, put the bar's profits into building schools, first in Abadan, Iran, and then across West Africa and Southeast Asia. In 2007 he set up the Kamal Foundation to do it properly. It is run entirely by volunteers, so nearly every dollar raised ends up in a building.

Closed every August

Each August the Saloon shuts its doors for the month so Commy can travel to the current project and supervise construction himself. By 2018 that had added up to 21 schools over 18 years, plus clinics and homes, and the count has kept climbing since.

The villages are partners, not recipients. Before a school goes up, families save a day's income each month for six months and commit a day a week of labor to the build, which covers roughly a tenth of the cost. Parents then chip in pennies a month for upkeep, and the local government furnishes the school and pays the teachers. As Commy puts it, the bar "has become the office of the foundation now."

The wall

Look at the bricks. Anyone who gives $150 or more to the foundation gets their name painted on one. Decades of regulars are up there.