WNY Update: Fun & fundraising
Ice cream is good medicine
By Gary Fallesen, founding president, Climbing For Christ
UPDATE: We were blessed to receive $1,855.22 from the “Change for Change” ice cream fundraiser. Special thanks to Leanne Bohn, Dave and Morgan Stoessel, Mary and Ken Lindsay, and our family at Hope Lutheran Church for making this happen despite a heat index of about 100 degrees.
Dr. Gilbert: God used Climbing For Christ to rescue him from the jaws of death when he was a boy in his mountain village in Haiti in 2007. Now he is more than halfway through six years of medical school in the Dominican Republic.
When our daughter Hayley worked at Abbott’s Frozen Custard in Hilton and Greece, we talked about how an ice cream shop was the happiest place in the world. Ice cream makes us smile. It makes us feel good. It’s almost medicinal.
We are combining ice cream with helping people who have no access to medical help in the mountains of Haiti, and hopefully this will make many feel better.
Our home church (Hope Lutheran, 1301 Vintage Lane in Greece) is hosting an ice cream fundraiser for us from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday, Aug. 9. It’s called “Change for Change.” It’s a drive-through ice cream event: Drive through, get a cone or dish of ice cream, and drop some change in a bucket. You can also drop a check or bills into the bucket. All the funds will go to Climbing For Christ’s New Generation (C4CNG), which is conducting a medical mission in Kalimet and Majon, Haiti at the end of August. We need $4,000 to make this mission possible. Kalimet and Majon are two of the four mountain villages in which Climbing For Christ operates schools for hundreds of children who otherwise would not receive an education.
The idea for C4CNG’s medical mission came from the communities themselves. “Requests from the people we are working with in Haiti,” said Gilbert Lindor, C4CNG’s leader and the young Haitian Climbing For Christ is putting through medical school in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
“The aim is to help some people with some medicine and guide them on the state of their health and how to take care of them. Ninety percent of the people who live there are hypertensive with (blood) pressure in a serious condition. I imagine that they also suffer from other diseases, and they do not know it.
“I think it would be a great happiness for the people to see this type of program that so many of them have requested.”
Climbing For Christ conducted more than a dozen missions to Haiti from 2005 to 2014, and many included medical clinics in which hundreds of patients were ministered to each day. Soon, Dr. Gilbert will continue this C4C tradition and help his own people with medicine and a dose of the Great Physician. A scoop of ice cream can go a long way in helping this effort. 
What: Ice cream fundraiser. When: 6-8 p.m. Monday, Aug. 9. Where: Hope Church, 1301 Vintage Lane, Rochester, NY. How to give: Drive through, eat some ice cream, donate to Climbing For Christ. Or send a check to Climbing For Christ, c/o Haiti Medical Mission, P.O. Box 16290, Rochester, NY 14616 or CLICK HERE and give online through PayPal. Thanks for the support!
More fun and fundraising
We are GO-ing again, which means we need to raise support to send staff on mission. This will start with our annual CLIMBATHON in early September. Elaine and I will climb a peak in the Adirondacks to train for and prayerfully drum up donations for bigger mountains – namely the Himalayas – on Mission: Nepal 2021 in October. You can email a pledge or simply send us your gift.
Speaking of October, a Climbing For Christ team will be forming for the annual ROCtoberfest 5K on Saturday, Oct. 9 at Genesee Valley Park in Rochester. Contact us if you want to run in or donate to this event. Proceeds from this event also will GO toward missions (Nepal in October and Peru later in the year).
Both our CLIMBATHON and the ROCtoberfest 5K are important events since the Hilton Apple Festival was cancelled for the second straight year. Applefest, where we have a food booth dishing out delicious mountain-fresh smoothies, pulled-pork sandwiches, and “walking tacos,” is one of our biggest local fundraisers every year. So losing this event again hurts. Please pray for God’s provision through other avenues and lift the work He is doing through Climbing For Christ in places others cannot or will not go.
Giving is easy: Send a check to Climbing For Christ at P.O. Box 16290, Rochester, NY 14616. CLICK HERE and give online through PayPal.
The final Word
“A joyful heart is good medicine…” — Proverbs 17:22 (ESV)
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