Conservacion Patagonica

I’ve always been a person who wants to see a lot of change in the world, but have fallen victim to the nagging voice in my head saying ‘your only one person what can you really do.’ Hopefully this past weekend was a break in that line of thinking for me; it was the first time I saw a charitable event I thought of actually happen, and I’m pretty amp’d how it went down.

A few months ago, around late November ‘07, I came up with this idea to hold a bouldering competition that would benefit a group called Conservacion Patagonica*. I don’t know what made me want to organize such an event, whether it was insanity from the crappy winter weather, that Pittsburgh is known for, or being stuck at a crappy job and not climbing enough, but either way one rainy Pittsburgh day the idea popped into my head and I ran with it.

My good friend Todd and I pitched the idea to the coordinator at the University of Pittsburgh’s climbing gym and he went for it, we were on our way. I was stoked, full of energy we compiled a list of all the companies we could think of, and sent letters requesting donations to each. The response we got was great! BD, Metolius, Trango, Patagonia, Sterling, Climb On, Evolv, Organic, Urban Climber, Climbing Mag, and a local retailer Exkursion all jump on board.

After a lot of planning and setting the event went off more or less with out a hitch, it was pretty sweet to see something I had conceived a few months ago actually happen. In the end we ended up raining $1215.00 dollars for Conservacion Patagonica; not a bad chunk of change.

Hopefully, in the future I’ll have the motivation to participate in more events that support a good cause; there sure are plenty of them out there. One I’m really psyched on is called “Climb Up So Kids Can Grow Up.”

And I guess, even though we can't see the positive effects of our actions on the world all the time, every little bit helps change the world slowly but surely.

*Conservacion Patagonica is dedicated to “preserving intact ecosystems by acquiring and protecting privately owned wild lands, and returning these landholdings to the public domain for permanent protection in the form of national parks or reserves”