There are champions. There are dreamers. There are doers. There are talkers. There are those who desire to be part of something bigger than themselves.\u00a0 I think that is where I find myself.\u00a0 I want my life to have significance beyond meeting my immediate family and local community social needs.\u00a0 I do not believe everyone does that, but many do.\u00a0 We find ways.<\/p>\n
A few people have responded to my email<\/a> about how I hope to walk 500 miles this Summer, 4,600 in total, to raise a million dollars for clean and safe water.\u00a0 One person, very successful in her own right, this morning passionately begged me to set up a time where she could join in walking a few miles together.\u00a0 I will try and set that up for the end of June.\u00a0 A former colleague wrote and said $500.00 was being sent by PayPal<\/a>.\u00a0 Yet, another said a check for $25.00 would be sent.\u00a0 Another told me, keep me informed because I cannot afford to write a big check all at once but I want to support you for every mile.<\/p>\n It reminds me of a very hot Memorial Day in 2005 when I was hiking the Appalachian Trail.\u00a0 I met a young couple coming up the mountain with clean clothes and a bright smile.\u00a0 Coming back, they asked if I was a through hiker.\u00a0 I thought it was pretty obvious.\u00a0 I was dirty, unwashed, unshaven, a lean mean walking machine.\u00a0 They asked if I would be interested in them taking me to a local party store down the road.\u00a0 I said \u201cYes.\u201d\u00a0 They waited while I loaded up on chocolate, drinks, sandwich food and then they drove me back to the trail about 2.5 miles back.<\/p>\n I asked James, the driver and a medical resident, why they did this for a complete stranger.\u00a0 His response was one I will never forget.\u00a0 He said, \u201cYou are doing something I would love to do and cannot at this time in my life.\u00a0 If we can help you fulfill your dream and be a small part of what you are doing, it would give us enormous pleasure.\u201d\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 That has now become an overriding passion of mine\u2026to help others live a more abundant life\u2026and we can do that together.\u00a0 Thank you for taking the time to read this blog<\/a>. You can find more details on how to get involved on our website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are champions. There are dreamers. There are doers. There are talkers. There are those who desire to be part of something bigger than themselves. I think that is where I find myself. I want my life to have significance beyond meeting my immediate family and local community social needs. I do not believe everyone does that, but many do. We find ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":209658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_block_theme_hide_title":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-209657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-founders-corner","tag-hiking","with-featured-image"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/IMG_2141A-4-600x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/IMG_2141A-4-600x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Lou Haveman","author_link":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/?author=5"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=209657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/209658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=209657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=209657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=209657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}