This right here is life goals.
Dr. Fred Distelhorst, an 88-year-old retired orthodontist has become the oldest person to climb to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.
Distelhorst, from Vail, Colorado, summited Mount Kilimanjaro with his granddaughter, Ellen Edgerton, who was already in Tanzania volunteering. Ellen was volunteering with Bob Bandoni’s Shoulder to Shoulder program when she emailed her grandfather saying “I just signed you up to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.”
According to Vail Daily, Edgerton, who still stays fit by riding his bike and skiing more than 100 days a year, took a warmup stroll up Quandary Peak near Breckenridge before hopping on a plane to Dallas, then to London, and then another to Nairobi. The next day, he flew to Kilimanjaro with his granddaughter.
Deciding they wanted to climb for a purpose, Edgerton and his granddaughter started a GoFundMe page to help them raise money for the children’s home in Kenya where Edgerton has been volunteering.
via GoFundMe:
Friends and Family,
As many of you know my grandfather and I just finished climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in 6 days. Because my grandfather summited, he broke the record for the oldest person to reach the top, Uhuru Peak!
We both decided we wanted to climb with a PURPOSE. I spent the prior 3 weeks in Meru, Kenya, staying at an orphanage called KACH, which takes in children who have been orphanged from AIDS and violence. I co-led a student group called Student Shoulder to Shoulder (SStS) in which we attended the communities needs through farming, installing biogas digesters, digging etc. I also stayed an extra week to assist at local hospitals.
The founder of the children’s home, Dr. Karambu, has told me that they urgently need to build a house for their upcoming 13+ year old boys, due to a cultural tradition in Kenya, which states teenage boys must live in a separate house from the family due to their coming of age.
Thus, I have created this page as a way to spread awareness about the issues in Kenya and to ask for support for building these children, and my new friends, a place to sleep.
Any donation, no matter how small ($1) will help and is greatly appreciated. I have created this safe page to make it EASY and FAST to donate.
Thank you for your support!
Ellen Edgerton
Mount Kilimanjaro is one of the world’s Seven Summits, which consist of the highest peaks on each of the seven continents. Kilimanjaro rises 19,361 feet above sea level, which makes it the world’s tallest freestanding mountain. As many as 30,000 people climb it every year.
