Gap Year: Patagonia Adventure Exp

Alexas Kelly is organizing this fundraiser on behalf of Alexandria Kelly.

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Help me reach my goal of $8,000 (eight thousand dollars)! Your generosity will enable me to pursue my dream of traveling to the last true frontier. Next fall I have my sights set on Patagonia. Patagonia is a region in South America that covers the southernmost terrain of Argentina and Chile. Here I will thrive on the very edge of human expansion. I will work, learn, live, and love.

Hello! My name is Jack Stroman. I am 18 years of age, living in Newburyport Massachusetts. This year (2018) I graduated from Newburyport High School. My plan following highschool is to take a gap year. I have decided that the habitual college process is not right for me. I realized that I was not quite ready to move onto higher education. Upon this realization, I decided to take action. With the help of my mom, the two of us visited numerous gap year fairs and presentations. Our search was successful, however I did not find a program that captivated me, nor did I find an affordable gap year program through fairs, and promotions.

I found my gap year program through a long time friend of my mother's, Jonathan Leidich. Jonathan owns and operates the Sol de Mayo Ranch located in Patagonia’s Laguna de San Rafael National Park. Jonathan is the brain behind PAEX (Patagonia Adventure Expeditions). PAEX works with a limited number of clients each year, one hundred and eleven to be specific. Jonathon has calculated the impact of human interaction upon the land, 111 being the maximum number of clients with the least amount of impact on the environment. PAEX creates custom expeditions ranging from one week to one hundred days. PAEX is committed to education and supporting universities and scientists on climate change research . The outdoors is viewed as a magnificent classroom, and here is where Jonathan, and his team believe Humans thrive, and where they are best equipped to solve problems.

September 15th, 2018 is the unofficial start date of my gap year adventure. I will leave Logan Airport, next stop Santiago, Chile, and then onto Balmaceda Airport in Coyhaique, Chile. I will meet with Jonathan for the six hour hike to the Sol de Mayo Ranch in the Colonia River Valley next to the Northern Patagonian Icefields. Here I will tend livestock, help maintain agriculture, tending and harvesting plants, structural repairs, leading, and accompanying expeditions, assisting on climate change research, learning, sightseeing, soul searching, and developing a gap year program for Jonathan and PAEX in the seasons to come.

Help me make this dream possible. I am doing my part by working all summer to raise funds. This is nothing short of a once in a lifetime experience, and I believe there to be a mission waiting for me at the end of humanities tight grip on the earth's resources and environment. There is change I wish to see NOW. A gap year with Jonathan and his team PAEX is the first step for me towards catalysing the change I wish to see in all of society, and in the heart of every human. It is of the utmost importance that humans leave their overstimulated lives and search for something greater. An adventure back to the past where societies and buildings are just visions. We must be able to find a place, idea, or object that has not been permeated by Humans vast expansion. We must retract from our bias lives and open our minds. Thanks you for making this possible! Please donate what you can!

http://www.patagoniaadventureexpeditions.com/

http://www.patagoniaadventureexpeditions.com/blog/

Thank you so much, Jack Cameron Stroman