Traveling the earth to scale its highest peaks, Brian Dickinson is also looking to do some good in the world along the way.

The Snoqualmie resident, who climbed Mount Elbrus in Russia last July, is not only fulfilling a personal goal to climb the world’s top seven summits. He is also traveling to show children around the world who’ve been left by the wayside that someone still cares.

“A lot of people try to climb mountains these days,” Dickinson said. “Not a lot are successful and they’re not always doing good for the world. You have a major goal: why not use it as a platform to do better for the world?”

On a mission

Dickinson is a retired U.S. Navy officer turned Cisco System Engineer and business teacher at University of Phoenix. He grew up in Oregon, and remembers being inspired by poster pictures of mountain climbers, wondering if he’d ever be able to do feats like that. But as he grew older, he realized that he, too, could be the man on the mountain, given the right training, skills and mind set.

Last year, he climbed Mount McKinley in Alaska’s Denali National Park. The climb inspired him to do more.

With his background as a search-and-rescue helicopter swimmer in the Navy and his wife Joann’s profession as a social worker, their passions combined to make Dickinson’s mountain climbing expedition an opportunity to help children in other countries. As he and his family traveled, they distributed toys to orphanages in several nations.

Connecting with orphanages in third-world countries proved difficult.

“It’s a struggle because every continent is different,” Dickinson said. “It’s difficult to find some of these orphanages. Some have Web sites, but some of these countries don’t have the technology.”

New smiles

Climbing Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro in February, Dickinson was fortunate to get link up with an orphanage that one of his climbing guides grew up in when they were younger.

“The guide brought us into the poor areas and ghettos,” Dickinson said. “We were out of our element.”

But with a bag of toys in hand, he shook off the wariness of being in an unfamiliar area and remembered why he was there: to make a difference in a child’s lives.

“The kids didn’t even know how to smile,” he said. “You’d see these little smirks like they wanted to smile.”

Asked by his drivers why he brought hundreds of toys for youths he didn’t know, Dickinson explained that it did matter to the one child who tried to smile after he received his toy.

“The rest of the world has let them go, so it’s nice to know that there’s someone out there that does care about them,” he said.

Inspired by his African experience, Dickinson, along with his wife and Snoqualmie residents David and Jessica Heyting, collected more toys from friends and church members to take during their Russian journey. They brought more than 1,000 toys and gifts for an orphanage in St. Petersburg.

Next spring, Dickinson plans to climb Mount Everest in Nepal, where Cisco and philanthropy groups he is involved in have help connect him with another orphanage.

“Everest will be interesting,” he said. “It’ll be so difficult being away from the family, but I know the climb will be amazing. All the effort you put into it, and how you feel at that moment, it’s just a sense of accomplishment. All the beauty you see gives you a different perspective.”

To donate to the Dickinson’s orphanage benefit, visit http://sponsor7summits.com.