. . . and help save a child's life!

Climb Up Kilimanjaro is a unique fundraising event that pairs an athletic challenge to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania with the goal of helping African children with AIDS. Created for serious alpinists and climbers by the American Foundation for Children with AIDS, Climb Up Kilimanjaro is an expedition of a life time.

We’re looking for 12 brave men and women to help us battle the devastating effect of AIDS on children and their families in Sub-Saharan Africa. Climb Up participants will not only climb Mount Kilimanjaro, but they’ll change lives of children with AIDS in the process.

Climb Up Kilimanjaro? How Does it Work

Climb Up Kilimanjaro is both an athletic challenge and a self-directed fundraising event. While participants train for this once-in-a-lifetime expedition to Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, we ask that they concurrently raise funds to help children with AIDS.

When is Climb Up Kilimanjaro?

AFCA offers several opportunities to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in 2010 and 2011 including:

Climb Up Kilimanjaro: September 11-22 , 2010. This includes travel time.
Team Just Do It —for Nike employees only:

Climb Up Kilimanjaro: February 5-15, 2011. This includes travel time.

Climb Mount Kilimanjaro Fundraising

Climb Up participants are asked to raise a minimum of $8,000 for the American Foundation for Children with AIDS by collecting pledges from friends, family, and coworkers. While fundraising ideas run the gamut from car washes to corporate sponsorships, AFCA staff works closely with every participant to help them meet their goals.

Fundraising suggestions and ideas for the Kilimanjaro expedition are just a telephone call or email away. It’s our way to ensure that participants have everything they need to achieve both their training and fundraising goals.

 

Why Climb for African Children With AIDS?

African children with AIDS face a difficult existence, including poverty, malnutrition, and HIV. The dramatic downturn in the world economy, coupled with the tragic events of the January 2010 Haitian earthquake has obscured the continued need to support African children with AIDS. Your support will provide meaningful and lasting support in many ways.

How Sponsors Donations Will Help Children with AIDS

The money you raise by participating in Climb Up Kilimanjaro is used to provide free medications, supplies and food to hospitals serving HIV+ children, their HIV+ guardians and HIV+ pregnant women in Sub-Saharan Africa. Many potential sponsors often wonder what their donation will do; here is a brief explanation of how donations are used:

$30 – Anti-retroviral medication to help an African child combat AIDS for one month.
$50 – Food necessary to avoid weakened immune systems and keep children strong.
$140 – Antibiotics to prevent 10 children from opportunistic infections for one year.
$500 – Sixteen months of ALL medicine an HIV+ child needs
$1000 – A shipment of badly needed medical supplies and equipment to Uganda
$5000 – Feed 400 children for one month, enabling them to take the medicine they need
$10,000 – A 40’ container of medical supplies and equipment to Uganda

 

Registering for Climb Up Kilimanjaro Is Easy

During the registration process, you’ll find that Climb Up Kilimanjaro provides the ability to create your own, personalized donation page that will help you in recruiting sponsors. Please note that we charge a $250 registration fee.

• Important Registraton/Fundraising info

 

Climbing Kilimanjaro: What to Expect

Past Climb Up Kilimanjaro participants have raved about the experience. “Kilimanjaro, Tanzania is one of the most beautiful places on Earth” offered one 2009 participant. “The climbing experience was wonderful, the people were great and it was a bonus that we did it all to help children with AIDS.”

Most climbers will find that the Mount Kilimanjaro ascent is strenuous, however mountaineers that have consistently trained in advance should be able to overcome the challenge. Consistent long-term training is necessary and advanced training at altitude is ideal; the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro,Tanzania is at 19,340 feet.

 

A 2009 Experience: Kilimanjaro Tanzania

Here is one experience recorded by Brian Hauenstein, a 2009 Climb Up Kilimanjaro participant:

My name is Brian Hauenstein and I am a 40 year old Retail Marketing Manager from West Michigan. My quest to climb Mount Kilimanjaro began more than twenty years earlier, in my late teens as I discovered the secrets of the mountain through a National Geographic Special. From that point on, I knew that the climb was going to be one of my top lifelong goals.

Over the years I would summit Mt. Fuji, Trek Northern Thailand and explore much of Europe, but Kilimanjaro was my ultimate aspiration.

In 2004, plans had been set for the climb; however changes that took place in my personal life prevented me from taking the leap, despite months of training and preparation. A few years later, my co-worker Neil Kirby and I set our new sights on 2010. As we began to plan, we toyed with the idea of doing the climb for a charitable cause. This would give the climb more purpose than just striving to meet our own personal achievements. Little did we know that we were embarking on another adventure altogether.

It wasn’t long after we began discussing options that we were approached by a past colleague that had recently joined the AFCA Marketing Team. After some initial investigation, we made the decision to join the maiden Climb Mount Kilimanjaro event. Initially, we had some concerns: First about moving our climb up from January 2010 to September 2009; Second, the outfitter; Third, the selected route. But we quickly got past these concerns and went straight to work on our Kilimanjaro Tanzania adventure.

Three of us from West Michigan teamed up to raise our funds for the trip and to help children with AIDS. In this way, we were able to share our talents in ways we could not as individuals. Each of us had contacts that would allow us to build multiple events and creative ways to raise funds.

While we tried a variety of fundraising methods, some were more productive than others. While we had a number of concert events complete with free advertising, we found that one to one conversations with family, friends, coworkers and even strangers were much more productive. In addition, we found that a giveaway with a minimum donation was really helpful; we created an event shirt after finding donors that provided shirts and artwork. $20 donations piled up quickly and the ability to say that 100% of a donation went directly to the cause was powerful.

Climbing up Mount Kilimanjaro was more amazing than any of us could have imagined. It was truly the journey of a lifetime. The guide troop (www.nomadicexperience.com), was second to none, providing all of the necessary health monitoring and coaching to get all but one of us to the top. They truly made the trip a big success. Nearly all of us had shown some signs of altitude sickness, but it was their cool and calm sense of confidence that kept us positive and able to carry on, reaching ever further above the clouds.

I recall summit morning as we caught our first glimpse of Mawenzi to the east jutting through the soft clouds below. The earth seemed to bend from horizon to horizon. Nothing prepared me for this view. Although we think we have seen the earth from this altitude, it’s a very different experience from peering through a 10” tall airplane window that’s several inches thick. As if it’s not already hard to breath at over 19,000 feet, but the view further attempts to take what little breathing you can muster.

Here’s a word of advice….don’t tell your guide that you’ve gone far enough and seen enough when you’re just a few minutes from the actual summit. Every muscle and synapse is telling you to turn around and begin the several hours of decent, but do yourself a favor and continue on…the greatest view and pictures of you at the summit await you.

Good luck and God bless you on your journey to save lives and experience the world’s tallest free-standing mountain!

Brian Hauenstein

 

What Is Climb Up So Kids Can Grown Up?

Climb Up So Kids Can Grown Up is an initiative led by the American Foundation for Children with AIDS (AFCA), a non-profit organization that helps HIV+/AIDS children and their guardians in sub-Saharan Africa. AFCA provides critical AIDS medications, medical equipment, nutritional supplements and supplies that are requested by their partner institutions in Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

When you join our Climb Up Kilimanjaro So Kids Can Grow Up team, you will embark on two incredible ventures. One is to summit Mount Kilimanjaro and the other is to raise funds to provide life-saving medicine to children with AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. Participants raise a minimum of $8,000 for the American Foundation for Children with AIDS by collecting pledges from your friends, family, and your workplace. We are here to help you accomplish this goal and provide you with suggestions on how to raise money for your climb here.  Half of those funds get them to Africa as well as up and down the mountain safely with our sponsor guides, Summit Expeditions and Nomadic Experience (SENE). The other half will go directly to support AFCA’s programs.

Climb Up Kilimanjaro So Kids Can Grow Up is an adventure which benefits children affected by the AIDS pandemic. You don’t have to be a hard-core climber to participate. We are looking for twelve people to be part of this team…if you want to be considered, please fill out the application form and send to us.

Call 717-798-8335 to learn more.

• 2010 Application Form
• 2011 Application Form
• Important Registraton/Fundraising info
• About SENE

 

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