Read past articles of some of our awesome Streetfront alumni!
Meet the Runner Series highlights how marathon running produces great Street2Peak participants. The students profiled here are Harmony Santori, Cody Price, Abdi Ahmed, Emily Lloyd, and Sierra Sidwell.
As usual this group of 15 Chile hopefuls hiked a pretty quick pace covering the 15 km’s and 1,400′ (426m) in elevation gain in a respectable 5 hours with breaks.
Yours truly had forgotten the camera at school but Hai was kind enough to lend me his image maker to grab a few shots. Thanks Hai and thanks also to our other fantastic volunteers for the day – Jesse, Sean and Crystal.
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Today we kicked off the series of training hikes that will be used in part to select the 15 or so youth who will join the 2nd Street2Peak Project trek to the Patagonia region of Chile in March 2017.
Do these youth have the dedication, the tenacity, and the physical ability to become a strong Chile team member and reap the rewards of hard work? Well if today is any indication we had 14 awesome youth right here who had a great hiking pace and demonstrated they want the opportunity to backpack in Torres Del Paine National Park and possibly a side trip to Easter Island (Rapa Nui). Well done all!
Thanks goes out to our great volunteers – Jesse, Sean (former S2P Mt. Kilimanjaro participants) and Hai from Britannia Community Centre who help support the youth and Streetfront staff. Thank you.
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SUMMER TRAINING SCHEDULE:
This summer we begin our training and selection process for those youth who are interested in being on our 2017 Patagonia Chile team.
* Mt. Seymour (North Vancouver) – Hiking
July 10th – 9am – 5pm
* High Falls Creek (Squamish) – Hiking
July 17th 8am – 5pm
* Elk-Thurston (Chilliwack) – Hiking
July 24th – 8am – 8pm
* B.P. – Deep Cove to Lynn (N. Van.) – Backpacking
Aug. 7th – 9am – 6pm
* Norvan Falls (North Vancouver) – Backpacking
Aug. 14th – 9am – 5pm
* Capilano Pacific Trail (N. Van.) – Backpacking
Aug. 21st – 9am – 5pm
* Cheakamus Lake (Whistler) – Backpacking
Aug. 28th – 8am – 8pm
Please make sure you have submitted the required forms, below…
2016 Summer Training Hike Consent
We are very happy to announce that we have finalized our next Street2Peak trek for March 2017… Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile!!
The iconic Torres del Paine. Photo from internationaltravellermag.com
Torres del Paine was voted the fifth most beautiful place in the world by National Geographic. Torres del Paine, and the whole Chilean Patagonia region for that matter, is a dramatic landscape of granite spires and sharp-edged mountain ranges that rise out of plains, emerald green lakes and accented with glaciers.
We will backpack self-guided over 75 km’s of Torres del Paine extensive trail system utilizing campsites and refugios (mountain huts) along the way. We are so excited to have chosen Patagonia as our next trek to continue to expose our youth to the incredible beauty of people and places of this world.
Stayed tune for more details about this trip and our fundraising efforts to make this trip a reality.
On April 30th Westcoast Reader staff brought Martin & Esther Kafer to meet the Mt. Kilimanjaro group. The Kafer’s are a legendary BC mountain climbing couple who are both Guinness World Records recipients for the oldest man (85) and woman (84) to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro! In 2012 they hiked the same route we took on our successful Kilimanjaro adventure.
They gave a short talk about their life hiking, skiing and climbing mountains in BC and all over the world since marrying 1953. They have summited over 500 mountain peaks and named over 73 mountains – the number of mountains they were the first people to summit!
They are such an inspiration to us all and are stark examples that with the right attitude and passion you can have a very long life of adventures. 
Our fantastic MLA, Jenny Kwan, read a statement out in the House today (April 16th, 2015) about our successful Mt. Kilimanjaro Trek! Jenny has and continues to be a great supporter of our project and its youth.
Trevor’s hometown was interested in our Street2Peak Project’s African adventure. Follow this link to hear and read about the interview with CBC Saskatoon Morning’s host Leisha Grebinski.
Kilimanjaro participant Savannah Dawson joined Trevor Stokes in conversation with CBC’s The Early Edition host Rick Cluff about our success on Mt. Kilimanjaro!
The Street2Peak team is now home from our successful trip to Tanzania, Africa where 19 team members summited Mt. Kilimanjaro, spent four days camping while on Safari in Manyara National Park, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and on the Serengeti and spending time with some great Tanzanian people!
Our team prior to departure with some of our great supporters – Geoff Taylor (Britannia Principal), Jenny Kwan (MLA – Vancouver/Mt. Pleasant), Alex Blodgett (seeker of gear sponsorships) and Don Fiddler (VSB District Principal, Aboriginal Education).
We are going to be the coolest people on Mt. Kilimanjaro in our killer Ryders sunglasses. Ryders Brand Ambassador Brent Martin let our entire group pick whatever sunglasses they have in their product line – which is HUGE, so that we could control our own cool factor! What a hugely generous sponsorship. Soon you will be seeing how cool we are in our Ryder shades atop Mt. Kilimanjaro!
Thank you Tom Jones of Terramar Sports for the simply luxurious top and bottom base layers for our entire team! Thank you for the tremendous support. We will be much more prepared and comfortable with Terramar clothing next to our skin!
With the fantastic support of Alex Blodgett in so many ways we developed a great partnership with The North Face to supply the Street2Peak Project with duffle bags, the team fleece jackets, base layer tops and daypacks! Thanks to Alex and to Kayla from The North Face!
Here is another newspaper article about our Mt. Kilimanjaro Trek…
http://metronews.ca/news/vancouver/1300623/vancouver-students-prepare-for-climb-of-their-lives/
Global News came by Streetfront to do piece on our Street2Peak Project with Savannah and Emerson doing a great job representing our Mt. Kilimanjaro Trek!
Once again we have to thank Vanda and her Rackets & Runners team for supporting the Street2Peak Project in another way…
Vanda presented us a cheque for over $1,100 when picking up our boots. Thanks to their Brooks Running CA sample sale they had on the weekend part of the sales went to support the youth in their journey to the top of Africa!
Rackets & Runners is also the proud sponsor of our running program at Streetfront and our students never go without running shoes. Now that’s one huge community supporter!
Today Street2Peak participants Keenen Vickers and Lonell Belcourt went to Rackets & Runners on Oak Street to pick up the groups New Balance hiking boots from owner Vanda Borean (a huge supporter of our project from the start) and New Balance Canada rep. Benji Epp! A huge thank you for their partial sponsorship of our Mt. Kilimanjaro Trek!
Street2Peak participants Brandon Kaine and Jade Bissonnette receive our fantastic team jackets generously donated by STORMTECH Performance Apparel. Thanks to Jeff Silcock, Marketing Manager, and Stormtech for your support of our project and its students and helping to protect us from the elements!
This is how its done on a Professional Development Day at Streetfront! Some of our youth came to school on their day off to do a trail run with Brandon while Barry took two for a hike on the Mt. Seymour Trail. Thanks Brandon for your time and connection with the youth! Great pictures that captured the conditions and the fun you all had.
