Advisors conquer Kilimanjaro to raise $155,000 for charity

(January 24, 2003) It’s a birthday Steve Meehan will never forget. The chief executive officer at IPC Financial Network reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro on January 12, along with a group of advisors from the Investment Planning Counsel of Canada. The climbers were raising money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Canada.

The adventure began on January 6. Twenty-eight advisors and guests, a dozen guides and more than 50 porters set out to climb Kilimanjaro, which, at 5,895 metres, is the highest peak in Africa.

“The whole trip was eight days,” Meehan says. “Early on the seventh day we reached the summit. So it was about six days up and two days down.”

Four people on the IPC team were forced to drop out due to altitude sickness. “It really has nothing to do with physical conditioning but there were a few people who just couldn’t deal with it,” Meehan says. “They got fairly sick and had to go back down.”

Meehan describes the climb as “fairly intense,” but overall not as difficult as he thought it would be. “One day was incredibly tough, far and away the most challenging thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he adds.

“It truly was amazing, it’s great to look back and say you’ve done it,” Meehan says.

Make-A-Wish helps fulfill the wishes of children who have a life-threatening illness. As of January 20, the climb had raised $155,000 but Meehan estimates his group’s target of $200,000 will be exceeded once the final figures are in.

“[Make-A-Wish is] delighted. They can’t say enough good things about what we’ve done and they’re overwhelmed with the amount we’ve raised,” he says.

Filed by Doug Watt, Advisor.ca, dwatt@advisor.ca