Source: SWC Bulletin
He may be set to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, but Gordon Bailey has his sights set a bit higher than the 19,341-foot peak.

Bailey, of Newport, is part of the Elevating Education Climbing Team that will climb Africa's highest mountain this month. They hope to raise $250,000 to pay for construction of a school for girls in Kenya's largest slum.

Bailey, 79, a third generation member of the family who founded Bailey Nurseries, left for Africa Feb. 5. He will fly into Kenya, where he and the 25 other members will travel to neighboring Tanzania.

He did not seem fazed when told that temperatures on the snowy summit of Kilimanjaro can dip to minus 10. He's a Minnesotan, after all.

"I've done a fair amount of winter camping so I think I'm pretty well prepared," Bailey said.

He's also fit. In 1999, he cycled 2,100 miles from Oregon to Minnesota. The trip, dubbed the Tour De Hort, raised money for horticultural research. In 2001 he rode 1,200 miles from Minnesota to Cleveland in the Tour de Hort II.

Mount Kilimanjaro, which is actually a dormant volcano, towers above the northern plains of Tanzania in East Africa. Bailey and his fellow Elevating Education climbers will string out the trek to seven days in order to acclimate themselves to the ever-increasing altitude. Trekkers start in a tropical rain forest, where black and white colobus monkeys commute from branch to branch. Higher up, the landscape changes to alpine meadow and then a rocky moonscape.

The ascent is relatively gradual. Most routes up Mount Kilimanjaro don't require mountaineering gear or skills.

"This is not a technical climb," Bailey said. "This is a hike."

Even so, altitude sickness has prevented many trekkers from reaching the top. Bailey has packed anti-altitude sickness pills, prescription Malaria prevention medication, and toe warmers. To condition himself, he's been walking up and down the hills near his home.

"I live on the bluff overlooking Newport so there's good hills going down into the valley, so I get plenty of opportunity (at) Loveland Park," he said.

The expedition is organized by the KGSA Foundation, a non-profit organization in St. Paul that partners with local activists and organizations in third-world countries to help alleviate poverty. They include Abdul Kassim, who established a girl's soccer team in 2002 in his native Kenya. He wanted to provide a constructive alternative to teenage girls who lived in Kibera, a sprawling slum with over 1 million residents.

Girls in Africa often are discouraged from school and forced to work — or worse. Kassim realized that the girls stood the best chance of escaping their impoverished beginnings if they received a decent education. He founded the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy. The original school was a humble one-room schoolhouse. Kassim gradually expanded it, paying for construction with money he made from his job as a telecom engineer.

"That's one of the things that I'm really excited about is visiting the school and meeting the girls," Bailey said. "We met Abdul Kassim. And he had dinner at our place."

Bailey said his fundraising efforts have exceeded the $10,000 minimum required for each member of the Elevating Education team. He won't say how much he's raised. But insists that people can still donate.

"I think the focus should be on the cause rather than the hikers," he said. "It's a wonderful cause."

To donate, visit www.kgsafoundation.org.