In 2004, after Hurricane Charlie hit, six year old Zach Bonner ran around his Valrico neighborhood with his little red wagon, and asked for “water, baby formula and things like that…” He ended up collecting enough to fill 27 pickup trucks.
Zach turned seven in 2005, and started the Little Red Wagon Foundation (watch out for auto-audio!) to help homeless kids.
In 2007, he began a monster trek: “My House to the White House.” That first year he walked from Valrico to Tallahassee, 
raising $25,000 and plenty of awareness. The next year, he continued from Tally to Atlanta, raising another $7,000. This year he finished the trip, taking 59 days to walk the last 668 miles from Atlanta to Washington DC. Of that last leg, he says it was pretty hard:
“There were times when I definitely was tired,” he said. “But then I thought about the kids who do not get to quit being homeless.”
That attitude is what moved Beliefnet to call Zach Bonner the “Most Inspiring Person of 2009.” But he’s not done yet.
Now that he’s all grown up at 12, he’s got even bigger plans. He is going to walk from Tampa to Los Angeles.
April 1, 2010 I will begin my Coast to Walk Across America. Walking around 2200 miles. in order to raise awareness to the over 1.3 million homeless youth. We will be selecting projects along the route to help homeless kids. If you ahve a project idea or a good organization along our route please let us know.
If you want to help Zach, visit the Little Red Wagon Foundation, and make a donation.
Zach Bonner is both inspiring and impressive. And there are lots of folks doing lots of things around here that deserve more attention. If you know of any inspiring folks from the Tampa Bay area, please let us know about them…
(Photo is courtesy of the Templeton Report of the John Templeton Foundation.)
