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Steamboat Springs — A little bit of Steamboat Springs was added to Kenya in 2008 as a group of locals spent time and money constructing part of a group home for 60 children in Meru, at the base of Mount Kenya.

Volunteers from Alpine Initiatives - a philanthropic group formed by four winter athletes - and International Peace Initiatives helped created the first Amani Community Home.

Chad Fleischer, one of the four co-founders of Alpine Initiatives, said the group has raised more than $20,000 from personal contacts and donations, and he hopes to raise another $25,000 by June to continue the project.

Alpine Initiatives was formed by Fleischer, JP Auclair, Mikey Hovey and Seth Koch. Koch and Hovey work as helicopter ski guides in Alaska, Fleischer is a retired ski racer and Auclair is a sponsored backcountry skier. Koch and Fleischer call Steamboat home.

Koch said he hopes their connections in the ski industry will allow the group members to raise money for projects the group selects.

"We don't necessarily want to create our own nonprofit where we're creating something on our own," he said. "We want to pick someone else's project and raise funds and awareness for it."

"It's skiers who have had professional ski connections of one type or another who wanted to do something for humanity," Koch said.

Their first project, in Kenya, is a creation of International Peace Initiatives. The Alpine Initiatives team was responsible primarily for the kitchen.

Emmanuelle Vital, a Steamboat resident with experience working with international organizations, was a member of the group that traveled to Meru in October.

"A lot of these children are orphans or have lost one of their parents to AIDS," she said. "Now they're living with neighbors, grandparents and people who don't have a means to support them."

For 10 days in October, the volunteers dug and poured the foundation for the kitchen. Vital, who works for Evo Designs in Steamboat, also helped the group create a self-supporting garden for the home. She said the keys to the project's success are sustainability and a sense of ownership imparted on the community members and children in Meru.

"It's not our project; it's their project," she said. "We want to empower the people to be really proud of what they do. All of the children came, and they helped physically."

In her work with the World Bank and U.S. Agency for International Development, Vital said she has seen many projects falter because they are not self-sufficient. To remedy that problem, solar panels will power the Amani house, which will be under local leadership.

Fleischer said traveling to Meru and digging out the foundations for a kitchen and dining room for the community center during a 10-day trip was a moving experience, especially on a group work day. That day, 70 to 80 community members volunteered their time to help complete the center.

Among the workers were many of the children who eventually will call the building home.

"For us, it was just a chance to truly meet and socialize and be involved in the community," Fleischer said. "To meet the kids and shake their hands and let them wear our ball caps and sunglasses. : They were intrigued by everything."

Fleischer said Alpine Initiatives encourages all donors to become involved with the project.

For more information or to volunteer or donate, visit www.alpineinitiatives.org or www.ipeacei.org.