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Nabeel Meghji had climbed nearly 20,000 feet to the summit of Africa’s tallest mountain and raised enough money to help provide three meals per day to AIDS orphans in Tanzania, his home country. But it was not to be. Not on the watch of one local orphanage caretaker who said she would accept only one meal per day.

“She tells me, ‘Your money, you provide me with three meals a day maybe for a month, maybe two, but then after two months it is very hard for me to explain to a 5-year-old that there is no breakfast anymore,'” Meghji said. “And that just hit me – hard.”

Meghji decided to provide one meal per day for six months, but the problem Meghji and fellow CDS Global Inc. employee Shayne Huston have decided to battle is far more vast.

Ever since last winter, when Meghji decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, the two co-founders of the nonprofit Peak4Poverty – formed after the success of the first trip – have worked together for the cause of helping to feed and educate some of the roughly 1 million Tanzanian children who are infected with or have been affected by AIDS. They had aimed to raise $2,500 but raised just shy of $5,000 through donations from all over the world. The money supported 217 orphans at six orphanages and sent 23 children to school for the year.

“$5,000 here in the U.S., yeah it might get you a little headline, where over there it is a huge difference for kids,” Huston said.

The cost of a year of school in the world’s fourth-poorest country ranges anywhere from $150 to $450 per year.

When Meghji and Huston formed the nonprofit after the first climb, they added board members from every region of the country to expand its reach. Next December, Meghji, Huston and six other volunteers plan to repeat the Mount Kilimanjaro climb with a hope of raising enough money to send all 217 orphans to school for the year.

Peak4Poverty plans to make the climb a twice-yearly trip and plans to continue to widen the initiative in order to further help Tanzania’s orphans. The organization is also selling wristbands for $4. Each wristband sold provides enough food for one child for a week. For Meghji, a twice-a-year effort will be more than worth the grueling climb.

“The last day was really, really hard,” he said. “But doing it for a cause really motivates you, because you say I have to get to the top, because it is bigger than just for myself.”