Local Rock Climbing Group Promotes Palestine Solidarity to Raise Funds for Gaza
By Ben Bennett
October 6, 2025
The spark for the Philadelphia chapter of Climbers for Palestine came about a year and half ago, when Cedric, the founder of the group, was approached by a friend in California, asking if he wanted to help raise funds to drop a banner on El Capitan, the largest rock formation in Yosemite, standing at more than 7,500 feet.
“Of course,” Cedric said.
Climbers for Palestine activists dropped the ‘STOP THE GENOCIDE’ banner on the face of El Capitan in June 2024. Cedric, who asked that his last name be withheld, then helped bring a banner to upstate New York for a similar drop in the Shawangunk Mountains, among the most popular climbing destinations in the Northeast.
“Since then, I honestly felt like I wanted to engage more in our local [activist] community in Philly,” he said.
Participants in a Philly Climbers for Palestine outdoor meetup on September 13. Photo: @climbersforpalestine.philly
This past spring, Climbers for Palestine announced the Climb the Wall fundraiser, a “global climb–a–thon” in which rock climbers around the world collectively scaled 477 miles, or the length of the walls that Israel has constructed in and around the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank. Cedric decided he would participate and gather a coalition in Philadelphia to join him.
“I started an Instagram, which wasn’t a whole lot,” Cedric said. “Then someone reached out to me and put me in touch with Reid.”
Reid Marcus joined Philly Climbers for Palestine as an organizer when they were connected with Cedric in June of this year. Marcus stressed how vital it was to have a collective of like-minded individuals to get involved with and support people experiencing a genocide.
So far, Marcus’s time in the affinity group has been positive.
“It is really important to know who are your comrades, who are the people that also care about this thing,” they said.
At their first outdoor meetup on September 13, the group raised money for Watermelon Sisters, a Palestinian–led, Chicago–based nonprofit. They sold prints, t-shirts and homemade knafeh. For the Tuesday evening meetup at Movement Callowhill, a rock climbing gym, another organizer — Theo Cheam — created similar prints to sell.
Cheam, who is originally from Seattle, recently graduated from Haverford College and moved to Philadelphia. He started participating with Philly Climbers for Palestine through Instagram.
“I really wanted to be more involved in this organizing,” Cheam said. “It just seems like a really pertinent way to spend my time right now.”
Like his fellow organizers, Cheam echoed the importance of community. With this group the West Philly resident is able to grow a space for climbers who care about politics and are “dialed in.”
“The community here is really great,” Cheam said. “To find an intersection of those interests, it felt like a very special thing to have happened.”
In the future, the three organizers of Philly Climbers for Palestine want to continue fundraising and directly support the people in Gaza. Cheam said he might also do another banner drop in the new year. Marcus has proposed the idea of organizing a phone bank to call elected officials and urge them to make changes.
Like the group’s previous fundraising efforts, an action like this is unlikely to make much material change. Marcus noted that there hasn’t been a lot of data that shows the effectiveness of mass phone calls. He also acknowledged that sometimes people view groups like theirs as a “little pat on the back.” Still, they see Philly Climbers for Palestine as a place for community and for hope.
“How can we continually be providing a little bit of support, instead of doing nothing because we don’t know how to plug in?” Marcus said.
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Ben Bennett is a Chinese-American visual journalist based in Philadelphia and an Al-Bustan Media Fellow. He is a recent graduate of American University's journalism program, where his coverage focused on underserved communities and the intersection of politics and popular culture.
Al-Bustan News is made possible by a grant from Independence Public Media Foundation.