Climb For The Kids

Climb For The Kids is an annual mountain climbing fundraiser that raises money and awareness for kids battling cancer and other life-threatening illnesses. Our climbs have raised over $435,000 since 2015 to help children fighting for their lives. 100% of donations go to the charities we support.

It began in 2015 when our founder, Ryan Kelley, took on the huge challenge of summiting Mt. Rainier for a young boy named Alec. This inspired an annual fundraising mountain climb to help Alec and other kids battling cancer. Since then, our teams have summited some major mountains. Our biggest climb came in 2022 when we summited Chimborazo (20,549’) to raise $55,000 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Climb For The Kids

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KCF Presents: Worth It All

For our 8th annual Climb for the Kids event, we follow the inspirational journey of seven climbers taking on the biggest climb of their lives to raise $55,000 for kids battling cancer at St. Jude. Summiting Chimborazo Peak, a 20,000 foot supervolcano, pushed each person to their limits, but it was worth it all!

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How it all began

While going through a particularly trying path in his career, Ryan Kelley, Founder of The Home Loan Expert, spent time volunteering in a local children’s hospital, helping kids going through the hardest times.

In their presence, Kelley gained a life-altering perspective and decided to find a way to have a bigger impact on the children he’d met. He landed on an unorthodox fundraising plan: climb Mt. Rainer to raise donations directly for charities. From that first climb in 2015, Climb for the Kids was born and is now an annual fundraiser.

As in every year previous, 100% of donations go to charitable causes thanks to support from The Home Loan Expert.

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2021 CFTK, More Than A Crown

Imagine being told as a child that you have stage 4 cancer. Elizabeth Weidner used her battle and her crown as Jr. Miss Effingham County Fair to inspire action for kids struggling with this terrible disease. Our team heard her cry for help and used it as motivation to summit mountains in Alaska during our Climb for the Kids 2021. We raised over $64,000.

2019 CFTK, Switching the Summit

This short documentary film is about the limitations of childhood cancer research which focuses on the stories of Alec Ingram and Elizabeth Weidner, both of whom experienced pediatric cancer. This film was a part of our 2019 Climb for the Kids event in Ecuador climbing Cotopaxi Volcano. We raised over $50,000.

2022 Keep Climbing Film

We partnered with First Descents to bring four of their alumni to Estes Park, Colorado to climb the world-famous Alpine Jewel Via Ferrata. These four women, who have all experienced cancer either as a patient or a caregiver, approached the climb on different journeys with different goals—but ultimately had to rely on one another to add summiting the Via Ferrata to their own stories.

Partners since 2015

Our chosen charities all help children fighting serious illness or strive to empower children to live their best lives. We have proudly raised funds for:

Team Alec Forever

Team Alec Forever’s mission is to financially help childhood cancer families with end of life expenses, who are treated in the St. Louis area. No one should ever have to go through this. Our greatest wish is for this to never again be needed. Our prayer will ALWAYS be for a world without childhood cancer. We continue to fight for that to become reality. Until then, we will fund raise to financially support families going through this horrible disease. Surviving the loss of a child is hard enough. Help us, help these families in memory of Alec Ingram.

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St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

St. Jude is leading the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Treatments invented at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to more than 80% since it opened more than 50 years ago.

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Ronald McDonald House Charities

Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) believes when families are together, they cope better, and that no family should have to deal with their child’s medical crisis alone. The mission of RMHC is to create, find, and support programs that directly improve the health and well-being of children and their families.

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Friends of Kids with Cancer

Friends of Kids with Cancer is devoted to enriching the daily lives of children undergoing treatment for, and survivors of, cancer and blood-related diseases.

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Girls on the Run St. Louis

Inspires girls to be joyful, healthy, and confident using a fun, experience-based curriculum which creatively integrates running.

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Girls on the Run Rockies

Inspires girls to be joyful, healthy, and confident using a fun, experience-based curriculum which creatively integrates running.

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Fight DMD

Funds research to help find a cure for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a rare genetic disease that weakens the muscles over time.

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Isaac Bruce Foundation

Reaches out to youth and teaches them at an early age the importance of a healthy lifestyle with a focus on education.

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Crowns Fight Cancer

The Southeastern Illinois Community Foundation works jointly on the legacy that Elizabeth established with Crowns Fight Cancer. As a childhood cancer warrior, Elizabeth advocated for those that couldn’t by utilizing her crown to change how the world viewed pediatric cancer.

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