Pollstar has been following Peters’ mountain-climbing exploits on behalf of the Love Hope Strength Foundation (LHS) for quite some time, detailing his journeys as he and a few like-minded comrades hiked Japan’s Mt. Fuji, and Pikes Peak in Colorado as well as Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro. Members of the musicians’ community that joined Peters on these trips included Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba, Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze, Cy Curnin of The Fixx, Donavan Frankenreiter and members of the Gin Blossoms.
LHS has done a lot of good since it was founded four years ago by Peters, himself a cancer survivor, and CSI Entertainment Insurance’s James Chippendale. Some of its achievements include helping Nepal get its first mammography machine, funding mobile cancer units in Peru and opening cancer wings in the United Kingdom.
Now LHS is poised to make a difference in Tanzania. Coinciding with World Cancer Day Feb. 4, the center, located on the campus of the Ocean Road Cancer Institute in Dar Es Salaam, opens Feb. 8. Peters is doing the unveiling along with representatives of the Tanzanian Ministry Of Health, Ocean Road Cancer Institute, the Muhimbili National Hospital and The Union For International Cancer Control.
The facility is and made up of two wards on the grounds of Muhimbili National Hospital. The center has been decorated with the words “Tumaini, Upendo, Ujasiri” which translates from Swahili as “Love, Hope, Strength.
“Few things are more rewarding in life as the feeling people get when they join forces to help improve the lives of children,” Peters said in a statement announcing the cancer center’s opening. “All the agony so many experienced climbing Kilimanjaro, Pikes Peak and Mt. Fuji is completely overshadowed by the knowledge that our collective efforts will help children in Tanzania in a very real way. We are all proud, yet humbled to help open the new Tumaini, Upendo, Ujasiri wards.”
For more information, click here for the Love Hope Strength Foundation website.