East Lansing residents Madeleine and Ross March-Meenagh completed a 220-mile trek of the Michigan Shore-to-Shore Trail on Aug. 3 to raise money and awareness for the Flint water crisis.
Madeleine and Ross aimed to raise at least $5,000 for their Hike to Clean Water initiative.
They have reached their donation goal and raised $5,220.
Madeleine is a graduate assistant in the Michigan State Masters of Public Policy program and Ross is a third-year student in the College of Law.
Both are originally from Indiana, but they decided to raise money for their new home state.
“We had started long distance hiking and really enjoyed it and wanted to take a longer trip, but we knew that being able to take off such a long amount of time was a privilege that we had, so we wanted to give back in some way and make for something other than our own enjoyment,” Madeleine said.
The money raised from the hike went directly to the United Way of Genesee County to help the Flint community recover from consequences of lead poisoning. The husband-wife duo trained for over six months and funded it completely out of their own pockets to ensure all donations go to Flint.
“All the funds raised through this went directly to the purchase and distribution of bottled water, filtration devices not supplied by the state of Michigan and health access for children affected by lead,” Madeleine said.
She said that 75% of the donations came from people under the age of 30.
The couple started hiking at Lake Huron and finished at Lake Michigan. For them, this was to spread the message that from shore to shore, all Michiganders deserve clean water, regardless of zip code, income or skin color. In the end, they achieved their goal and raised over $5,000 for the community.
“We all have different ways of giving back, and this just happened to be the way that we chose to. We could’ve just as easily done the hike without raising money ... but if you’re going to be doing it anyway, you can see how you can leverage different opportunities to give back to others,” Madeleine said. “The people in Flint are going to be struggling for generations because of medical issues. ... (People) can continue to give to the United Way of Genesee County because non-profits are doing so much in the city of Flint right now”
They both said that this was the longest hike they had ever taken. Madeleine stressed that they had planned everything down to the detail, but given the rough terrain of the hike, they ran into many obstacles along the way, including an injury to Ross’ toe.
“It took a village of people to make this trip possible,” Madeleine said via email.
She said the entirety of Curtisville and Bear Lake Christian Church were instrumental in assisting the two in their journey.
“George Golubovskis, a homeless man from Traverse City who ran for Mayor a few years ago, gave us some tips to stay safe,” she said. “All in all we couldn’t have done it without so many people. I just don’t want it to seem like we did this by ourselves; it took a village.
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