Fundraising and trekking for a good cause.

People I photograph tell me all sorts of stories about themselves, good stories, funny stories, and tragic stories as well. Although my photography does help by getting their stories out to a broader audience, and action being taken. I am usually left wanting to do more; something more concrete. With so many people that need help, where do you start? When my friends, founders of @kidsofkathmandu asked me if I was interested in fundraising for some new projects they were working on in Nepal, not to mention "lets make it interesting by trekking to Everest Base Camp" I was sold.

I visited the school where the project I was fundraising for, to see the place and meet the kids. What a wonderful group of curious, and super excited kids to be in school. The money that has been raised will go to clean water, solar power, and spruce up their living area to make it more comfortable. Small things that will make a huge difference in their daily lives. The best part will be that this is just to start things off. There will be local support to help sustain the original investment. This support will give these children an opportunity to help themselves. I am very grateful of the people who had confidence in me to donate to this project. Many thanks to the founders of Kids of Kathmandu, Andrew Raible and Jami Saunders who lead busy lives in NYC and work tirelessly to do good for some of the less fortunate. Two people who I find inspiring, and I am lucky to count as friends.

I am looking forward to following up on the kids as the projects moves forward and will of course update everyone as I know. I did finish my trek, that story is in a previous post, and I am still fundraising a bit more to try to get closer to my goal of $9,000 which goes a long way in Nepal. Here is the link to the crowdrise fundraiser

http://www.crowdrise.com/everestbasecamptrek/fundraiser/williamvazquez

Here are A few photos of some of my time visiting a few of Kids of Kathmandu's projects in Nepal.

Trekking to Everest Base camp one

I Trekked 60 miles over 2 weeks and climbed more than 9000 vertical net feet. There were lots of ups and downs both literally and figuatively on this trek.  Nine strangers and myself started this together, and we finished together.  I learned a few things that would come in handy. Things like you should be very wary of passing Yaks, always wear a headlamp when visiting the toilet at night, watch out from up above for falling 50 pound sacks of potatoes on narrow mountain trails (thanks Tikie for helping me miss that one), bring wipes that have a fresh scent, and sometimes a snickers bar is the only thing that will help you climb that last 1000 feet. All kidding aside it was a great opportunity to raise funds for an orphanage, the main reason for the trek (more on that in another post) and to visit one of the rarer, mythical places in the world. I miss my fellow trekkers after spending 24/7 time with them for two plus weeks.

This is a bunch of images from my Instagram feed shot on my iPhone from the trek. The best camera to have is the one that you have with you. I will post other shots that I did as I liberate them from my real camera, even some black and white twin lens Rollie shots.