Leesburg resident Thomas Seymour is planning on walking 30 miles to help raise money for Riley’s Kid Foundation.
He set the date for the walk as April 30, with the last donation date of April 25.
He was initially thinking of starting a GoFundMe to gain followers and possibly walk cross country to raise money to help people, among other things. His brother suggested trying something local.
Seymour said he initially tried working with other local organizations but that didn’t work out.
Seymour then joined Team Riley. He said he decided on Riley’s because Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health is Indiana’s only comprehensive children’s research hospital. Cancer is a horrible disease and the kids go through a lot.
He said he doesn’t look to get anything from the walk.
He plans to start at Ind. 15 and Ind. 6, walk to Warsaw by following Ind. 15 and probably go to CRs 114 and 115 in Silver Lake and that will get him the 30 miles he planned for the walk.
The fundraising goal is $5,000. As of Friday afternoon, Seymour has raised $324. Anyone interested in donating money through Seymour’s campaign can do so by going to https://give.rileykids.org/fundraiser/3679138.
In order to train for the 30-mile walk in April, Seymour said the plan was to start Feb. 19 and walk the roughly 9-mile roundtrip between Milford and his home at least once a week. With the cold weather, walking has been kind of tough, but he’s been trying to do what he could, Seymour said.
He plans on documenting his journey on his Facebook page, which is public. There is also a link to his fundraiser page on the Facebook page for those who want to donate.
This is the first time he’s walked to raise money for a cause. He said he is considering the April walk a test run. He will possibly do a walk from the east part of the state west or north to south of the state at some point. He hopes by doing the initial walk, it’ll show people he’s actually going to do what he says he’s going to if he decides to raise money in the future by walking.
He plans on raising money in the future for different organizations.
He hopes, through his walk in April, people will get the idea to sacrifice a little bit of their time to help out others.
