Andrew Zarda usually begins his carpool home at 4:30 p.m. Small talk on the ride is difficult for Zarda because he’s the only native English speaker in the car, but that doesn’t stop him from striking up a conversation with three coworkers in the backseat who nod with polite smiles.

Zarda, Harvest Hiring owner and a 2009 School of Business graduate and KU almnus, drives employees like Shyiam Khanal, a refugee from Bhutan, to and from temporary jobs in Kansas City, Kan., four to five days a week.

“Shyam, what kind of work did you do today?” Zarda asked.

“Today my work is in an inside room, in the bathroom cleaning,” answered Shyam Khanal from the backseat with another smile. “Vacuum cleaning.”

Khanal seemed unaffected by the daily grind, perhaps because he’s working his first paying job in 17 years.

Khanal and the other refugees in the car are from Bhutan, a small Buddhist country landlocked between China and India. They are now exiled in Kansas City after spending years in Nepali displacement camps when they escaped the Bhutanese government in the 1980s.

According to the Department of State, more than 85,000 refugees still live in Nepali camps today. That number was once higher, but the United States offered to accept up to 60,000 refugees in 2006. Three years later, Khanal and Lila Rai, another Bhutanese refugee, are here, on their way home from work.

Zarda founded Harvest Hiring, a contract labor company that trains and connects Bhutanese refugees with employers seeking additional labor, to address the growing population of Bhutanese refugees in Kansas City.

“Our goal is to help out the workers as much as possible,” he said.

While brainstorming business ideas last spring, Zarda worked with refugees on volunteer projects in Kansas City, He spoke with his father, Bernie Zarda, an entrepreneur in the area, and discovered that many companies needed dependable and temporary labor throughout the year. With his father’s help, Zarda founded Harvest Hiring last June. Since then, 12 of the company’s contract workers have been hired as full-time employees by clients.

“Andrew picks us up and drives us long, long distance,” Rai said. “He’s a very helpful man.”

Rai and Khanal are two of about 150 refugees from Bhutan living in the Kansas City area. According to David Stettler from Mission Adelante, an outreach group for refugees living in Kansas City, about 100 new refugees expected to settle there over the next four years. Currently, 23,000 Bhutanese refugees live in the U.S.

Zarda said the refugees in the U.S. faced complex challenges, including difficulties with health care, education and employment. He said many refugees were either born without citizenship in displacement camps or lost it during the conflict in Bhutan. Because of this, they were unable to secure paying jobs, and instead performed chores of daily life in the camps. Many are receiving their first wages in 20 years.

“It was really fun the first time I got to give out paychecks to some of the guys,” Zarda said. “They come from a country with a caste system and all sorts of stuff. Here, they know they can improve their life and they love that opportunity. They love that idea.”

Back in the car, Zarda pulls into the gravel lot of an old brick-brown apartment building. It was Khanal’s turn to be dropped off. Instead, Khanal invited Zarda inside to visit his family. They were greeted by Khanal’s wife, two daughters and son, who offered him mango slices, orange soda and stories about their day. Khanal’s daughter, a high school senior, talked about her journalism class at school.

When the visiting was over, they said goodbyes, and Zarda turned out of the gravel lot and began his drive back to his home in Lawrence. It’s a long commute, but Zarda doesn’t mind.

“I’m loving this,” he said. “I’m learning so much.”

— Edited by Michael Holtz