Our Mission: To promote international learning for dedicated student athletes through travel to interesting locations, volunteer projects within local communities and exposure to new customs and cultures, while maintaining a safe, structured and challenging daily athletic training environment.
Our Goals:
We STRIVE to:
- Promote cross cultural learning and relationships
- Support the local community service organizations with whom we partner,
through volunteer projects as well as with financial support
- Provide serious student athletes with an opportunity to travel and volunteer
abroad without having to sacrifice their training
- Expand our programs to additional countries and locations
- Expand participants' understanding of the world
- Keep each participant safe, healthy and energized throughout his or her
STRIVE adventure.
Who Are We?
Katherine Trotzuk, Founder and Director
Katherine has lived and worked around the world in countries including England, India, Canada, Denmark, Japan and the United States, where she settled 18 years ago. Katherine received her MBA from Columbia University before working in corporate consulting for 15 years. As the mother of teen-aged runners, Katherine has been researching running-friendly travel destinations for years. Her oldest son, now a runner at Harvard, has trained while traveling in Kenya, Argentina, Hawaii, Spain, Turkey and England, among other destinations. STRIVE brings together Katherine's passions for organizing international travel, exploring new cultures, and supporting development efforts, with her desire to support all serious student athletes' desire to maintain their training regimen regardless of location.
Sarah Heard, Executive Director
A veteran teacher and coach, Sarah has lived in Tanzania and the Netherlands. She has traveled the world for decades and has led student trips throughout East Africa and Europe. She has spent summers doing service in Asia and Africa. Strive is the perfect combination of her passions of service, travel and sports. She currently teaches at Collegiate School in New York City where she also coaches cross country and basketball.
Strive's Group Leaders
Rob Martin has been a high school running coach and math teacher for over 10 years and has coached a number of state ranked runners and one current nationally ranked runner. He is also in training himself to run the NY Marathon in November. Rob's excitement in returning to East Africa is because he spent 3 years after graduating from Purdue University working for the Peace Corps, teaching math and training teachers in Malawi. Rob has extensive experience leading community service groups, organizing clean-up efforts after 9/11 in New York and in 2002 leading a team of Americans as they built a community center within a South African township. His passion for running and service, combined with his experience in coaching and managing high school aged students set the stage for an excellent Strive experience.
Luke Maher is currently a student athlete majoring in East African studies at Tufts University. He runs cross country and track all three seasons and has now spent 3 full summers in Iten, Kenya, his second home away from home.
Our Name:
The name STRIVE represents what we do and who we are. It's an acronym for Sports TRaining International Volunteer Experience. The name also keeps us on our toes as we continuously STRIVE to improve on every aspect of our programs, just like the dedicated student athletes who join our trips.
