From the Andes to the Future: A Father-Son Journey in Kindness

When we look at the impact Dear Future makes today, it is incredibly easy to overlook just how humble and wildly adventurous our beginnings truly were. Impact isn't born fully formed; it is chiseled out of uncertainty, late nights, and a willingness to step into the unknown.

In July of 2022, our organization was just an infant. We had officially started delivering vital school materials to children in Peru only four months prior. The global landscape was still deeply tangled in the caution and economic constraints of COVID-19. Access to cash was scarce, open commerce was fragile, and moving through international hubs meant navigating an unfamiliar world behind double masks.

It was against this backdrop that I decided to pack our bags for a deployment trip into the high altitude of the Andes, specifically targeting remote communities in the region of Huánuco. But this time, I wasn't traveling alone. I brought my eleven-year-old son, Alex, with me.

Stepping into the Plane to the Andes

An Unconventional Adventure

This was entirely separate from the standard script of a family vacation. There were no white-sand beaches or orderly theme parks waiting for us. This was Alex’s very first brush with raw adventure travel; his first time witnessing the immense scale of the Peruvian Andes, and his first experience helping me distribute school supplies directly to children who desperately needed them.

He was radiating a pure, unedited excitement, deeply conscious of the fact that his presence mattered. Our transcontinental journey to Lima went smoothly, but the real adventure commenced when we boarded a small, dual-propeller plane heading into the mountains. It was the exact type of flight his mother back home would have probably looked at with an anxious eye! Yet there Alex sat, right next to his dad, unbothered, focused entirely on the good we were about to do.

The school year in Peru had already started three months prior, but for the children in the remote mountain pockets we were targeting, basic tools like notebooks, pencils, and markers were still entirely out of reach.

Getting school materials ready for the Andes of Peru

The Reality of Grassroots Logistics

A Peruvian Tuk Tuk (Mototaxi)

When we arrived in the city of Huánuco, we hit the ground running. In those early stages of our operations, Dear Future didn’t possess an established, trusted network of commercial suppliers in the highlands. To optimize our donor capital, we had to be intensely resourceful.

My brother, Fernando, hand-sourced the materials in the coastal town of Trujillo and shipped them across the country via a localized freight line to Huánuco. Alex and I took on the responsibility of the "last-mile logistics." We traveled to the shipping depot, physically hauled the heavy, compressed cardboard boxes out of storage, and loaded them into a small local taxi.

What followed was a masterclass in grassroots collaboration. We transformed our room into a sorting assembly line. Alex and I spent hours meticulously organizing, counting, and individually packaging items so that every child would receive an equal, complete kit.

We didn't want these supplies to feel like an unthinking handout. We packed everything beautifully into individual brown paper bags. To seal them, we utilized custom stickers designed by Alex’s sister back in the United States, which I had printed before leaving. It was a beautiful, cross-continental family labor of love.

Creating the Kits

Where Clouds Meet the Earth

Beautiful Andean Town of Huanuco

By the morning of our third day, we were ready to ascend to our first two target destinations: the mountain schools of San Isidro de Visag and Yanayacu.

To get there, we had to navigate unpaved, single-lane switchback roads that zig-zagged aggressively up into the mountain peaks. It took over an hour and a half of intense driving along sheer drops, moving through terrain where the road literally seemed to merge into the clouds. We shared the path with local farmers leading livestock, completely isolated from modern commercial infrastructure.

The moment we stepped onto the school grounds, all the operational exhaustion evaporated. Alex was an instant sensation. The local children swarmed him, pulled him by the hands, and insisted he join their games.

As a father, I will admit to a few moments of sheer panic when he drifted out of my immediate line of sight. But every single time I caught up to him, he was perfectly at ease, entirely immersed in an energetic game of charades. Alex didn't speak a single word of Spanish, and the local kids didn't speak English. It didn’t matter. They had built a bridge out of laughter, gestures, and a shared soccer ball.

The Drumbeat of Empathy

Each afternoon concluded with total physical exhaustion. At that point in my journey, the sudden shift in altitude would completely zap my energy by midday, making the prospect of waking up to repeat the climb the next morning feel like a massive hurdle. Over time, those early deployments built an endurance that eventually made the altitude a total habit. But back then, it demanded every ounce of grit we possessed.

I tell this story because I want to continue beating a drum loudly and consistently: Kindness inspires kindness.

I didn't bring my eleven-year-old son to the high Andes just to have an extra pair of hands to carry boxes. I brought him so he could feel, firsthand, the immense human value of lifting someone else up. My deepest prayer is that by modeling intentional empathy today, I am planting a seed that will inspire him to create his own unique ripple effects of goodness in the world tomorrow.

To every donor, partner, and supporter who stood by Dear Future when we were just a four-month-old dream: thank you. You aren't simply purchasing paper and ink. You are actively helping us teach the next generation how to look at the world with an open heart.