Chicago Father and Son Team to Climb Mount Kilimanjaro for ShelterBox
A Chicago father and son team will begin a long trek to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in
Tanzania on July 22 to benefit ShelterBox, a Rotary international disaster relief charity
specializing in emergency shelter assistance.
Lakewood Ranch, Fla. (Vocus) -- A Chicago father and son team will begin a long trek to the summit of Mount
Kilimanjaro in Tanzania on July 22 to benefit ShelterBox, a Rotary international disaster relief charity
specializing in emergency shelter assistance.
Rotarian Mark Dyer, a ShelterBox Response Team member, and his son, Eric, will join 12 other members from
the United Kingdom for the climb to raise awareness and funds for the 10-year anniversary of ShelterBox. While
in Tanzania, the group will also spend three days working on a project at a local elementary school.
“Kilimanjaro is the highest free-standing mountain in the world, rising to 19,400 feet. It is the highest point in
Africa and considered one of the world's seven major summits. It is also a symbol of the continent where
ShelterBox has delivered disaster relief tents and humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of victims,” Mark Dyer
says.
In 2009, Mark spent seven weeks in Africa on ShelterBox humanitarian missions. In Somaliland, he helped
provide shelter to internally displaced persons fleeing the civil unrest in the southern part of the country. He spent
the month of October in Niger, West Africa, distributing equipment and special disaster relief tents to victims of
flash flooding that left 30,000 people homeless.
Eric graduated from York High School in June and will be attending the University of Illinois this fall. He is an
Eagle Scout, a ShelterBox volunteer and an experienced trekker. He created a logo for the Kilimanjaro trip in his
York screen-printing class and has been selling t-shirts with the proceeds going to ShelterBox. He also made a
banner with logos of the sponsors and signatures of the people who have contribu