Twelve-Year-Old Marches 2,500 Miles for Charity

While his peers are saving up for a Wii, hanging out at the mall, or maybe texting their friends, Zachary Bonner is drawing the attention of Presidents, rock stars and Hollywood - by making a difference for the 1.3 million homeless children living in the US.

By Anne Driscoll

Some kids walk to school. Some kids walk for fun. This summer, Zachary Bonner, 12, is walking 2500 miles across America to raise money and awareness for homeless children.
His journey began on March 23 in Tampa and is expected to end Sept. 14 when he steps onto the Santa Monica Pier in California accompanied by scores of homeless kids.

"He enjoys making other children happy," says his mom. But it's a little more complicated-and impressive-than that.

Bonner's to-do list reads something like this: Start a charity? Check. Raise hundreds of thousands of dollars? Check. Be the subject of a Hollywood biopic? Check. And do this all before most kids have taken middle school algebra? Why, of course, check.

When Tonic caught up with him on July 28, Bonner had just walked 15 miles to Phoenix in 100-degree heat, with a chest cold. Each day, he and his 44-year-old mom, Laurie, usually get up at 3:30 am. to start walking together by 5 to avoid the flaming heat, and usually manage to log 20 to 25 miles before they finish for the day. "We joke that it's 90 by 9. Today it was like 97 by 10," says Zach.

"Of course, the last couple of days I've been sick. It's harder to walk when you're sick."

It all started with a hurricane and a little red wagon - specifically, Hurricane Charley in 2004, which hit his home state of Florida pretty hard; and his Radio Flyer wagon, which the then 6-year-old took around to collect donations of water and supplies for families left homeless by the storm. With his mother's help, he turned in the donations at a collection and distribution center, and the media, which caught wind of his contributions, dubbed him "the little red wagon boy." So when he decided to continue his missions of helping youngsters displaced by natural disaster or the economy and inspiring other kids to make a difference, Zach settled on the name the Little Red Wagon Foundation. "We decided to name it the Little Red Wagon Foundation because the name fit with what we were doing. A little red wagon is a symbol of childhood and we're trying to help kids," says Zach.

Not His First Walk

Zach's coast-to-coast journey can be tracked at MarchAcrossAmerica.com, but this walk may not even be the most remarkable thing about Zachary, nor is it even his first walk. In November, 2007, he began a 1,225 mile long "My House to the White House" walk from Tampa to Washington, D.C., completed in three separate legs, ending last summer when he was welcomed at ceremonies in front of the Capitol building (right) by Michael Guillen, the president of Philanthropy Project.

Bonner is an adept networker both online (he tweets, texts and blogs) and in person. During that first walk, he happened to meet Elton John, whom he admires for his significant philanthropic work, and he has continued his relationship with the pop performer ever since. In fact, the famed singer/songwriter has promised to donate $50,000 if Zachary makes it all the way to LA. And after learning about the Clinton Foundation by listening to Clinton's book on tape, he once wrote a letter to the former president, saying, "Hi, I'm Zach. I'm 7. You have a foundation. I have a foundation. Let's compare notes," and they did.

"I thought, 'He'll never hear back,' but sure enough, three months later President Clinton was coming down to Orlando for another event and his scheduler called and said he'd like to meet Zach. Then after that, Zach started writing him and telling him what he was doing," says Laurie.

His skill, intelligence, dedication and keen marketing ideas have helped his charity grow significantly. "He has such a compassion for others and such a pure heart about it. He doesn't care if anybody even knows what he's done. He knows he has to raise awareness but its not about patting himself on the back," says his mom.

That's okay. Plenty of others are patting his back for him. As Zach makes his way across the burning deserts of the southwest, back in Charleston, S.C., a stage set is set up, recreating his life's story for the film Little Red Wagon that is being directed by David Anspaugh (Rudy, Hoosiers), written by Patrick Sheane Duncan (Mr. Holland's Opus) and produced by Philanthropy Project, a nonprofit initiative committed to using film to inspire everyone to become a philanthropist. The film is due to be released in 2011.

"It's pretty exciting because I hope through the movie that it will bring a lot of awareness," says Zach, "and, in a sense, to inspire other youth to get involved with their community to either start doing something themselves or join somebody else's effort."

Read more about Zach on Tonic. And check out these other inspiring kids!



Photos courtesy of the Philanthropy Project and the Bonner family.