The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step, according to Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu.
The journey across a continent starts with 10 kilometres, according to former Capilano resident and current dog devotee Jani White.
That’s how far White is planning to walk this Sunday to raise money for both the SPCA and the B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation in the Vancouver Sun Run.
White, who calls herself a “North Van girl,” decided to do her first ever 10 kilometre walk (“I’m not running.”) while on an “extended visit” to her old hometown.
White had an established practice in England as an acupuncturist with a speciality in fertility.
But as proud as she was of her Harley Street practice, White says she was doing too much and needed to choose between the clinic and her increasingly time-consuming sideline as a lecturer and writer.
She was in her office, preparing a letter of resignation when her landlord called, she says.
“He says, ‘Jani, sorry to say this, I’m putting the flat on the market.’”
With “no clinic, no home,” White was at a loss.
“I put my hands forward in total surrender and I asked: ‘What am I meant to do?’”
She decided to head back to North America with Millie, her Norwich terrier, and spend time with her mother.
When asked why she chose to walk for the SPCA, White gestures at her dog.
“I asked Millie,” she answers simply. She picked Children’s Hospital because of its standing as an excellent hospital.
“I’m walking for sick children everywhere,” she says.
White has been training around Lynn Canyon and Lighthouse Park to prepare for the Sun Run while using social media to inform potential Samaritans. White has currently raised $562 toward her $10,000 goal.
She deliberately didn’t attach a minimum threshold for donations, she says, explaining that generous people on tight budgets can be too embarrassed to chip in.
“We want 10,000 people to donate just one dollar,” she says. “Collectively, we can make an enormous difference.”
White is also planning to make a big difference with her next endeavour, a “social telethon” called Mooch Across America.
“Everything that America believes itself to be is splintering and fracturing,” she says. “The way that people are identifying (with) their individual tribes is potentially a big warning sign for democratic nations across the world.”
Her trip is intended to be literally guided by charity. After someone nominates a charity on social media, White says she’ll head to that town and spend 11 hours raising as much money as she can for that charity.
“It’s a chance for us to reach into small communities and open what they’re doing to the nation.”
The idea of a cross-country RV trip “from community to community, from cause to cause,” is to raise money for charity while meeting a spectrum of United States citizens ranging from the homeless to the affluent.
The charity drive is intertwined with a podcast series entitled: In Search of American Kindness.
“The reason this idea swelled up and burst forward the way it did is that we live in a culture where people feel so disempowered and so disenfranchised.”
White says she plans to invite guests into her RV’s makeshift sound studio, put on a pot of tea, and ask questions about kindness, about family journeys and how about how they fell in the United States.
“Do you feel integrated? Do you feel marginalized?”
The last question of each podcast will be: “What does it mean to you to be an American citizen?” White says.
“It’s a joyful project.”
White’s fundraising pages are available at bit.ly/2Hxhn94 and bit.ly/2HsO1ZC.
