Spreading Hope, One Step, One Paddle at a Time
One man's commitment and adventure to spread joy, raise awareness, and build community. A dispatch from Diane. And Chauncey.
Meet my friend Chauncey. He’s the co-founder and creative director of a nonprofit called We.Grow.Eco. He’s currently biking, canoeing, and walking across North America, from Toronto down into Mexico and back up into California and back to Santa Fe.
He’s over 100 days into his trek and is probably around Houston, TX, at this point. He’s spent sixty days canoeing, thirty days biking, and is currently fastpacking (walking fast or jogging with a pack) and hitchhiking from Louisiana to the Texas/Mexico border.
You might be asking yourself why anyone would do something like this. Well, Chauncey’s that kind of person. Rather than put a one pager together or just talk on YouTube, he believes in putting his words into action.
So even though he’s using social media to spread word about his journey, he’s out there exploring, discovering, and challenging himself. I think we all should do something to challenge ourselves every year.
The eight-month North American Trek is to tell stories about how we live, move, consume, and shape community - and how all that shapes the world around us.
You can follow him on Instagram if you’d like to virtually join the tour and to watch how he was almost sucked over a dam on the Mississippi!
Chauncey’s also the co-founder and creative director of we.grow.eco here in Santa Fe. He moved here after his first trek walking across the U.S. He found people so friendly in northern New Mexico that after his adventure, he set down roots and made Santa Fe his home.
We.grow.eco works to raise awareness and change behavior around problems that contribute to climate change. They have various initiatives to help achieve their goal, my favorite being their textile program. They take old cotton textile waste - like those old teeshirts that are ripped and can’t be donated - and turn them into beautiful paper and journals.
Chauncey came to my book launch for The Light of Wounds and gave me several 11x17 prints of the book cover on his paper. Like, how kind is that?
We need more people like him, people not afraid to put their words into action, who do things like embark on a many months-long solo journey to explore the land and what they have inside themself.
After he reaches Brownsville, TX, he’ll be backpacking through Mexico for a while, then up to San Diego and walking back to Santa Fe.
Chauncey’s wish is to spread hope and a little joy as he travels across the land, and to learn and share how people are building community. If you see him, please give him a holler and a hello. If you want to support him, you can do that also.
And let me know what you’re doing this year to challenge yourself!
Your journey has always resonated with us, Diane--so many of us dream of transformation, but so few have the courage to make real changes that have a measurable impact. And now you've provided us with another brave soul to inspire us! Bravo to you and Chauncey for raising the bar. xo