How are the largest mountain and the largest lake in Africa connected to Snowmass Village?

Brandon Potter, a paramedic with the Snowmass/Wildcat Fire Department, has been working to help villagers on a remote island in Lake Victoria and this fall the foundation he works for will offer hikers a chance to scale Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania as a part of a fund-raiser.

It all started in November 2008, when Mark Ross, a family friend and private safari guide in Kenya, came to visit the Potters. After learning about Ross' Kolunga Village Foundation, Brandon, who had a keen interest in sustainable tourism and philanthropic travel, decided to visit Kolunga the next month.

Environmental sustainability is simply meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations.

Sustainable tourism is an industry that attempts to make a low impact on the cultures and environments visited and at the same time generating income, employment and the conservation of local ecosystems.

Paving over paradise to build a new parking lot, is not sustainable tourism.

More than 500 million people travel each year, a growing percentage of these travelers add philanthropy to their goal of experiencing the world at large. In philanthropic travel, the travelers donates financial resources, time and talent to protect and positively impact the cultures and environments that they visit.

Meet the Luo tribe

Brandon Potter's experience as a philanthropic traveler started with a medical aid trip to the Ecuadorian Amazon. Then he met Mark Ross and learned about the Kolunga Village Foundation, whose Mission Statement is simple: “To create and implement sustainable projects as identified by the village residents that provide education, better health and general well being.”

The Kolunga villagers live on Rusinga Island in Lake Victoria along the shores of Kenya. Ross first came to this remote part of Africa in 2005 serendipitously. Fluent in Swahili and thus able to communicate with the villagers who had not yet been Westernized, he was intrigued by the people of the Luo tribe, who opened their hearts to 2,000 AIDS orphans, children that are normally shunned in most parts of Africa.

Seeing how these people, who earn about the equivalent of $1 per day, were willing to help others, he decided to start a foundation to help them through small sustainable projects. There were no free hand-outs. For each project, the villagers had to be invested in its creation and provide the labor.

The first projects included building latrines, a school house and classroom furniture. This was followed by the dairy goat project which at first brought 10 goats to Kolunga for production of milk and cheese and offspring which were passed on to new families to keep the process going. That's sustainability.

“Our goal is to get 300 dairy goats on the island. In November 2008, 10 responsible and reliable families were chosen by the community to receive a goat. They had to save up a little money and build a pen. They were highly invested in it. The high-yield dairy goats were obtained from a rancher in Kenya and were delivered healthy and vaccinated,” said Potter, who is now on the board of the foundation.

More goats were brought in and with the offspring, they now number 56. Costing up to $400 each, the goats are a great economic boon, producing $2 to $4 worth of milk daily.

The Kolunga Village Foundation has recently made a deal with the rancher to buy them for $250 each.

Many Villagers and Aspenites became involved in the latest project to build an enlarged clinic for the 5,000 Kolunga villagers, whose health needs were met by one nurse. The addition will also allow the community to receive governmental funding.

Last November, Potter organized a fundraiser at Jimmy's Restaurant and Bar in Aspen. Mark Ross thought $20,000 would be enough to build the addition. The fundraiser brought in $32,000, enough to also buy some more goats.

For locals, it was just another evening of fun for a good cause, but for the Luo it will mean better health care in general and special services for HIV/AIDS patients.

A real eye-opener

Brandon Potter has now been to Kolunga twice. The first trip, shortly after he met Ross, was an eye-opener into corruption and disappointment. An attempt to bring 500 stuffed animals to the island's children revealed the difficulties in being philanthropic, but the second time around, Potter was able to understand the system and put smiles on many more young faces.

“Probably one of the most telling occurrences during the construction of the clinic was the paradigm shift that occurred because of us, the whites, performing the manual labor for the skilled black workers. It was something that none of the Kenyans had seen before and it took nearly a week for them to become comfortable enough to tell us what to do. Our group had talked about this beforehand wanting to convey to the villagers just how vested we are in supporting their community,” said Potter about his second trip to Kolunga.

There are many layers to being a philanthropic traveler.

For those who would like to dip their toe into the travel of generosity, this fall at the end of October, Mark Ross will guide up to 12 hikers to the highest point of the African continent, Kilimanjaro, on a 12-day trip and do it as a fund-raiser for Kolunga Village Foundation, whose future projects include water purification, disease prevention and education, micro loans, malaria nets and water pumps for irrigation.

In the planning stages, this fundraising trip will start in Nairobi, Kenya. A flight to Kilimanjaro International Airport and then Moshi will bring the participants to the Keys Hotel to sort out gear, meet the guides and porters and prepare for six days of hiking and five nights of camping.

The trek begins at about 5,000 feet of elevation and ascends to over 19,000 feet. Although much of the hike is easy to moderate for the experienced hiker, the final ascent, though not technical, is strenuous. Two days of acclimation hikes will help to prepare the trekkers to reach the top of tallest freestanding mountain in the world.

After returning to the base, the group will fly and ferry to the old town of Lamu, a World Heritage site, on Lamu Island in the Indian Ocean near the Equator. Spend two full days reflecting and recuperating in the sand and surf. Fish, swim, sail, scuba or just relax and eat some fabulous food at the hotel. All the lodging on the trip, outside of the base camps on Mt. Kilimanjaro, are at the best hotels available.

The cost for the 12-day trip is around $5,500, not including round-trip airfare to Nairobi.

Participants are asked to create fund-raising possibilities, such as getting sponsors to pay one or two cents per foot climbed on the mountain. One person has already signed up and as the group gets organized, Potter will begin to organized events locally to earn more donations.

Travel is a passion for many. To turn this passion into a way to help the world seems to be the wave of the future. At least it is for Brandon Potter.

To learn more about the Kolunga Village Foundation, visit www.kolungavillage.org or contact Potter at potterbl@gmail.com for more information on the trip.