DU student climbs all 58 14ers for disaster relief
Prior to her first summit July 10, Brittney Woodrum had never climbed one of Colorado’s fourteeners. But, less than 80 days later, the University of Denver graduate student would reach the top of all 58 peaks as part of her “Fourteeners Project” to raise money for ShelterBox, a global aid organization.
“This project is a result of not just my work, but the work of so many people. And one of the things I never expected when I started this project was just how much traction it would gain and the huge community that would rally behind this,” Woodrum said recently. “I had never done a fourteener before this project. I felt confident I could do it, but did I actually know? No. And a lot of people were doubtful from the get- go. I think I allowed some of that doubt to seed in my own approach. But overall a lot of astonishment, joy and lots and lots of gratitude.”
Woodrum, a 27- year- old Kentucky native, is working toward a degree in humanitarian assistance at DU after studying nonprofit administration and Spanish as an undergraduate at the University of Kentucky. Upon moving to Denver a year ago, she immediately set out to find a way to give back and wanted to combine it with her love of the outdoors.
ShelterBox was the first to reach out to Woodrum. Known for its big, green box it sends out to those across the globe in crisis, its ambassadors have a reputation for going on great adventures with the box to raise awareness for its mission. Woodrum decided to tackle the fourteeners all while carrying one of these boxes, hoping to raise $ 1,400 per mountain, or a little more than $ 80,000.
After reaching the top of her final peak — Crestone Needle in the Sangre de Cristo Range — on Sept. 26, Woodrum said she had raised about $ 85,000 for ShelterBox’s COVID- 19 emergency relief fund.
“There is a sense of relief, because obviously every day it went on there was a huge concern for weather and all these other things,” Woodrum said. “So I feel really relieved that everything kind of worked out in my favor. There were a lot of moving pieces that had to go right for me to be able to complete it.”