Ken Hrubeniuk went on a five-day trek, summiting the Mt. Pasochoa volcano in Ecuador. Supplied photo
When Ken Hrubeniuk, broker/owner at Royal LePage Wainwright, signed up for the Ecuador Challenge for Shelter, he didn’t know just how challenging it would be.
He persevered with the help of his teammates and was able to raise $10,335.50 for the Lloydminster Interval Home.
“We trekked for five days, 90 km for the five days. Our biggest day was our second day and we summited the volcano Mt. Pasochoa. We did a thousand meters of elevation in 8 kilometres,” said Hrubeniuk.
“I was in a group at the back that kind of fell behind the others that weren’t doing great. We supported each other through the whole thing, to get up there.”
The November 2023 trip was part of Royal LePage’s 2,000,000 Steps for Shelter program, which raised $1.7 million for women’s shelters across Canada last year.
“Wainwright’s had its difficulties in the last couple of years. We’ve lost two people to family violence and I wanted to kind of help bring it out in the town to let people know there’s a place they can go to get help,” said Hrubeniuk, adding it wasn’t easy raising money in Wainwright for an organization based in Lloyd.
Hrubeniuk said once people began to understand the Lloydminster Interval Home helps not only residents of Lloydminster but people in surrounding communities as well, the fundraising picked up.
The challenge in Ecuador included 120 people from across Canada, split into groups of about 30 people. He said he’s not sure if he would have gotten through without the support of his fellow group members.
“It was hot in the daytime and freezing at night, and the weather was crazy,” said Hrubeniuk, adding one of the days they endured a storm that left three or four inches of hail on the ground.
“One guy left his shorts on top of his tent and they were frozen when we got up in the morning.”
“The storms would blow through and you’d get through them, but the emotional part of it … the whole point of it is to put ourselves outside of our comfort zone,” he said.
“There were no washrooms, there was no cell phones or anything. You’re just out there with these people.”
Hrubeniuk said motivation was key, and there was no shortage of that.
“Every day at lunch somebody was chosen to read a letter from somebody that has been through a shelter, and the first two days the ladies that were chosen finished their story with ‘this is my story’.
“It brought a lot of tears and hugs. So every day you read these stories and you go on because of these people.”
When asked if he’d do it again, the answer was yes.
“When I first came back people asked would you do this again, and it’s like ‘oh I don’t know, it was kind of 50/50 but once you forget about all the hard stuff, and just know the relationships you made,” said Hrubeniuk.
“It was a pretty amazing experience. The country is beautiful and the volcanoes are awesome. So yeah, I’d definitely do it again.”
The location for the next Royal LePage Challenge for Shelter, in 2025, has not been announced yet but previous treks have been held in the Purcell Mountains (2021), Sahara Desert (2019), Iceland (2017), and Machu Picchu (2015).
A total of $4.7 million has been raised via the Challenge for Shelter series.
