The American Alpine Club and the Zack Martin Breaking Barriers (ZMBB) committee have awarded the 2011 grant to Asa Firestone to establish a climbing community within one of the “favelas” (slums) of Rio De Janerio. Firestone along with the local community center will build a climbing wall, develop an outdoor program and organize trips for the children of the favelas to the local climbing area. Firestone will also be developing this climbing area as part of the grant. The hope and intent is to enable a few children, from time to time, to escape their life of poverty and experience the character development and self-realization afforded by climbing. This is much more than a climbing program. This is a personal development program designed to help underprivileged-children escape abject poverty.

The ZMBB grant is a dual-purpose grant fund. The primary objective is humanitarian and the secondary objective is climbing, alpinism and/or exploration in the natural environment. The focus is to affect human change.

Zack Martin died just before his 25^th birthday on Thanksgiving Day 2002. He was a recipient of AAC grants, the Anatoli Boukreev Grant and others. Zack was concerned about the general arrogance and self-serving aspirations of climbers and explorers. At one point he vowed that on all future expeditions he would not only climb and explore but more importantly he would perform humanitarian service in the local community.

Other recipients of the ZMBB grant have created positive programs all over the world. In 2006, for example, Adam French used the grant to address the problem of watershed contamination by human waste in the basecamp of Ishinca Valley in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca and to attempt the first complete alpine-style ascent of the East Ridge of Huanstán (20,976 ft.). In 2010, Jonathan Mingle was awarded the grant to help build 40 homes in Kumik, India, because of the necessary relocation of a village due to lack of water and to also attempt the first ski descent of Sultan Lango (19,117 ft.).