Everest for Autism 2025
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My name is Bill Shea. My son Lucius and I have been climbing mountains together since he was 12 years old after we moved to Colorado. But, in fact, Lucius has been climbing a figurative mountain his whole life. Lucius was diagnosed with Autism at 18 months of age and would face many struggles throughout his childhood. It took the hard work of not only Lucius but his parents and a conglomerate of caring individuals to help him become the person he is today. We are raising funds for the purposes of furthering his tremendous journey with an attempt at the summit of Everest in 2025 to show that the sky is literally the limit for kids like Lucius.
While raising funds for our expedition is our primary goal, we also wanted to use this opportunity to raise money for the Joshua School, www.joshuaschool.org, in Colorado. Without this amazing school, none of this would be possible. We were able to raise $3000 for the school during our training and trek of Mt Kilimanjaro in 2023 and realize that we can do much, much more with this project. So we are setting our goal high in the hopes of both our expedition goal and fundraising goal for the school. In order to accomplish this, we are going to donate 10% of any donations up to the 1st $100,000 to the school, 50% of the next $50,000 and 100% of all donations thereafter with the goal of raising over $100,000 for the school. This would make a tremendous impact on their programs including community outings, adaptive/sensory equipment, technological needs and much more. Knowing the impact personally that this school can have, we want to give back for future students to be given even greater opportunities for growth and lifelong success.
The past 6 years we have been building our skill set and it seems, coincidentally, that we have been progressing toward Everest 2025. It all started as a son wanting to go join his father on hiking trips in Colorado to climbing over 300 peaks in Colorado and Mt Kilimanjaro in Africa before the age of 18. Over the next 2 years, we will continue using the Colorado mountains as a training ground for our climbs of Kyajo Ri in October 2024 (a 6000m peak in the Everest region) and Aconcagua in February of 2025 (the highest mountain in the western hemisphere and outside the Himalayas at 6962m/22,841ft).
I guess Lucius himself put it best in a recent school project titled “My Life Journey”:
When I was really young I was diagnosed with autism. I had lots of opportunities, but didn’t know that at the time. When I started Kindergarten I was smart in my own way and had lots of opportunities, I just needed a lot of help then. When I was in 5th grade, my teachers didn’t know how to work with me, so it was very hard for me. When I was in 6th grade my parents thought it would be best to put me in a private school and my parents finally told me that I had autism.
When my family and I moved to Colorado in June like a month later I started getting into hiking. When I started getting into hiking that’s when things started getting better for me and got into a really good private school called The Joshua School for the next 4.5 years. When I first started at Joshua School I still had a lot to learn, but hiking helped a little bit with that. Then when COVID-19 hit when I was in 8th grade going into 9th grade I was having a hard time having to do everything online. It was getting harder.
Then before I started 10th grade year of school I finished all 58 14ers and did it a day under 3 years. Then when I started the school year I was getting ready to leave Joshua School. Then when 11th grade came I was so ready to go back to public schools and came to Grandview for the next 1.5 years. Grandview was a good transfer for me and was put in easier classes for a semester to start. Then I was going into senior year and I decided I needed to be more challenged. Now I’m just ready to graduate high school and can’t wait for the journey ahead.
I can’t wait to do all these expeditions after I finish school, but we have to do really hard training for the 2 years after I get out of school. My first expedition is in October and it’s like a month-long mountain class. This mountain class teaches me how to use ropes and cross ladders with crampons. I have to do a few other mountain trips after that mountain class before I can go do Mt. Everest in Nepal. I’m doing all of these expeditions so I can hopefully become a Motivational speaker, but I'm gonna start off small. I could already be a motivational speaker, but I’m hoping to have the opportunity to talk about more. I could already talk a lot about my Kilimanjaro trip, but imagine if I could talk about my Everest journey that could change my life for the better.
I would like to say that I’ve grown so much over the years and there’s just more to come for me. Life hasn’t always been easy for me, I’ve had my days and I’m sure I’ll have more tough days. I can’t wait to see what the real world has to offer me.
If I could become a motivational speaker that would change my life. Most people don’t get this opportunity, that's also why I want to do this. I would be so proud of myself if I could push to the summit of Mt. Everest. The days I don’t feel motivated I’ll just say this could change my life forever. I can’t stop thinking about how much this would change my life everyday.
Thank you for your support in this endeavor and helping us to support the Joshua School!!
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Organizer
Bill Shea
Organizer
Centennial, CO