Local employees travel to Ethiopia for charity
UPPER PROVIDENCE >> More than 500 GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) employees applied to participate in the company’s Trek for Kids charity mountain climb, but only two were chosen locally to head to the upper regions of Ethiopia’s Simien Mountains.
Fitness enthusiasts Susan Melle and Thuy Tran, both in their 50s, will represent the company’s Philadelphia region on a trek that began March 21 and will include seven days hiking up Ras Dashen, one of the highest mountain peaks in Africa, followed by a stop at a local community to visit clinics and learn more about the charity Save the Children and GSK’s work in Ethiopia.
“There are about 40 employees from all over the world doing this trek to raise money,” explained Melle, a finance director at the GSK location in Colleg-
eville. “They fund us to raise awareness and then we raise money. There are people in Australia, Pakistan, Viet Nam, doing their own fundraising at their own Glaxo sites. We’ll have raised about $250,000 across the 40 employees and then GSK matches that and donates it all to save the children. It’s just like any fundraiser. It’s like the breast cancer walks, this is the same thing. It’s for employees to raise awareness and collect pledges. Overall, there are 120,000 Glaxo employees worldwide, in manufacturing, from vaccines to regular medicines, to consumer brands, at all different types of sites.”
Through bake sales, rummage sales and celebrity bartending events, Melle and Tran have raised more than $6,000, said
Melle, who has been training especially vigorously for the trek.
“They want us to train because we’ll be hiking five or six hours a day to the top of this mountain. Thuy and I have been training on the weekends and I’ve been traveling a lot to train,” said Melle, who described herself as a “weekend warrior. I’m active and go to the gym. You have to train for this but you don’t have to be a professional athlete.”
Still, she recognizes that the adventure will have its grueling moments.
“You’re camping, you’re not staying in hotels, you’re not taking showers, there are no bathrooms, all out in the wilderness. We’ll have a guide telling us where we’re going. They call them Porters, and they support large groups who are trekking and help with food and other items. They’re big business in countries like this.”
GSK has had an alliance with Save the Children for five years, explained Melle, a Norristown native now living in Phoenixville.
“They’ve donated money, resources and medicine to support their efforts around the world. Two years ago they decided they wanted to get more employee involvement, so they did a fundraising Trek for Kids in Kenya,” noted Melle, who previously hiked Mount Kilimanjaro and has also raised thousands of dollars for Spring Valley YMCA’s Athletic League for children with special needs.
She mused that a potential health challenge to trekkers could be high altitudes of the Simien Mountains.
“Once you get up to 10,000 feet some people will get sick. There’s not a lot you can do about that.
It’s just hereditary. You can be a really fit person but not do well in high altitudes,” she said. “I was fine in Kilimanjaro, which was higher than where I’m going now, so I think I’ll be OK.”
Melle shared an excerpt from the winning application she submitted for Trek for Kids: “Save the Children focuses on the most vulnerable in society. I’m so impressed by their efforts across the world. This organization is needed more than ever as unfortunately funding for social services supporting children is decreasing and coming under budget pressure in most countries. I’d be honored to represent GSK and Save the Children and continue to ‘be the change’ “
Upon returning home, Melle only plans for a brief rest before the relentless “weekend warrior” heads to Peru in June with her daughter for more hiking.
“No, not too much rest for me,” she said, laughing.