Tag Archives: MANNA FoodBank

PCT Thru-Hike 2023

DAY #1 On the PCT

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PCT Day 1 – 7.6 miles
Southern Terminus to Random Campsite
PCT miles remaining (approx): 2647.4

Highlights:
– Delicious Breakfast at Scout and Frodos
– Driving to the monument with our wonderful shuttle driver, Skywalker, from @pctsouthernterminusshuttle
– Elaborate photo shoot at the monument featuring the @highlandbrewing Trailbound Hazy Pale Ale.
– Sobering moment looking at the border wall
– Starting the trail! Feeling giddy and excited
– So much water everywhere
– Lilac tunnels
– Stopping for all of the interesting plants
-Camp in a beautiful place with Heather, Eliza, Mags, and Audrey
-Mason joins for post-dinner hangs and beer drinking, more Trailbound from Highland Brewing!
– Great conversations with new friends

Keep following @hikingforhunger on Instagram for more updates and photos! You can also follow @hero_thru_n_thru and @bam_micah for even more pictures and videos from the trail!

Learn more about our fundraiser and donate at https://hikingforhunger.org/

Happy Trails,

Hero and BAM!

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#hikingforhunger #doitfortheBAM #beyourownhero #mannafoodbank #highlandbrewing #mountinspiration #withoutlimitz #pct2023 #pctthruhike #PCT #foodinsecurity #foodsecurity #foodislove #feedingamerica #tramily #desert #backpacking #hiking #veganathlete #veganthruhiker #veganbackpacker #fundraiser #fundraising #adventure #explore #shareyoursky #vloging #coupleswhothruhike

PCT Thru-Hike 2023

Launch Event Reminder and Added Details!

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Reminder Message from Hero

The Hiking for Hunger Launch Event is coming up real fast, y’all! As Friday evening quickly approaches, we are excited to share a few updates and reminders with y’all 🥰

When: Friday, April 7th 6-8 pm, remarks around 7 pm
Where: Mount Inspiration’s West Asheville location (444 Haywood Rd.)

🍻 Our friends at Highland Brewing will be sharing samples of their brand spankin’ new Trailbound Hazy Pale Ale. We’ve had the chance to try it and it is quite delicious! 😋

🥨 Light snacks are being provided by the one and only Red Fiddle Vittles – y’all it’s gonna be TASTY up in here!

🍀 We’ll be kicking off a fun little ✨giveaway✨ at the Launch Event this Friday. It’ll include some H4H swag and some goodies from the incredible humans of Mount Inspiration. The giveaway details (what’s on the line, how to enter, etc…) will be shared after the event on our socials and website, so fear not if you cannot make it to the Launch- we gotchoo 😉

🚙 A note on parking: Free parking is available in the lot behind Mount Inspiration. There is also free parking across the street at the old Asheville Primary School.

We are so so excited to see y’all this Friday! It means so much to be able to celebrate with y’all as we get ready to embark on this journey 🤗

Cheers!

Hero & BAM!

PCT Thru-Hike 2023

Announcing our PCT 2023 Fundraising Goal! – New Donation Platform Instructions

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Announcing our PCT 2023 Fundraising Goal! – New Donation Platform Instructions
PCT Thru-Hike 2023

You’re Invited! – PCT 2023 Launch Event

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Alright party people, get ready to throw down, because we’ve got a Hiking for Hunger Launch Event on the horizon!

We are so so SO thrilled to share with y’all that we’ll have a dedicated time and space to celebrate the start of this next journey with y’all. We want to say a HUGE TY to our friends at Mount Inspiration who have so graciously offered their space in WAVL as the venue for this shindig… y’all are amazing!!!

✨The Deets (That We Have Thus Far):

Where: Mount Inspiration Apparel West (444 Haywood Rd. Suite 103, Asheville, NC 28806)

When: Friday, April 7th, 2023 @ 6 pm

Mark your calendars and stay tuned for more info as we get closer to the day of the event. Feel free to share this invitation with friends and family.

Please RSVP by emailing us at micahandkeeka@hikingforhunger.org

WOOHOO! Can’t wait to see y’all on April 7th!

Happy Trails,

Hero & BAM!

PCT Thru-Hike 2023

Announcing our PCT Start Date!

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PCT Start Date and Trailiversary!

Announcing our PCT Start Date!!!
We will be starting at the California-Mexico border on April 12th.

Today is also our Trailiversary! Two years ago today we started hiking the Appalachian Trail. Even though February 14th 2021 was a misty dreary day in Georgia, nothing could dampen our spirits. We set out on the AT with so much enthusiasm and excitement we practically ran up all the stairs at Amicalola Falls. lol 😆 I (BAM!) also remember someone asking us where we were headed and I quickly responded “TO MAINE!!!” so loudly and enthusiastically, it even caught me off guard… the people who asked just kept walking.
Well, the enthusiasm is building again, this time in anticipation of the PCT!

Please remember to like, share, and comment on our posts. It helps us get in front of more people so we can raise more money for @manna_foodbank

Check out our website http://www.hikingforhunger.org and follow our blog.

Thanks for following our adventures and supporting our cause.

Hero and BAM!
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#hikingforhunger #beyourownhero #doitfortheBAM #mannafoodbank #foodinsecurity #foodsecurity #endhunger #feedingamerica #ashevillenc #WNC #PCT #pacificcresttrail #PCT2023 #california #oregon #washington #mexicotocanada #thruhike #hiking #backpacking #Trailiversary #appalachiantrail #atclassof2021 #at2021 #atnobo #fundraiser

PCT Thru-Hike 2023

🎶 Please Allow Us To (Re)Introduce Ourselves… We are Thru Hikers, Headed for the PCT 🎶

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What up, Hiking for Hunger fam! It’s been awhile since we’ve done an intro post, so here goes nothing 🙂

Hi, hello there! We are Micah and Keeka Grant-Tomlinson, the creators of the Hiking for Hunger (H4H) project, an initiative which came into fruition at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. We were both working for MANNA FoodBank in Western North Carolina (WNC), a part of the US that sees higher rates of food insecurity than the national average under normal circumstances. We witnessed firsthand the dramatic increase in need spurred on by the early days of the pandemic and felt driven to find a creative means of further supporting MANNA’s mission of ending hunger in WNC beyond our day jobs.

Thru hiking the Appalachian Trail (AT) had been a dream of ours for a long time, and we had planned to finally make this dream a reality in 2021. Somewhere along the line, we came up with the idea of harnessing our thru hike as a means of fundraising for MANNA. Fast forward to the end of our H4H fundraising campaign on the AT, we had raised just shy of $32,000 for people facing food insecurity in WNC, more than tripling our original goal of $9,000.

We’re thrilled to be bringing Hiking for Hunger back as we prepare to thru hike the Pacific Crest Trail this spring. We’ll go into more detail on our backgrounds, what we’ve been up to during our year+ off from thru hiking, etc… in future posts. Until then, please feel free to ask us questions you’d like answered! 🤗

Happy Trails,

Hero & BAM!

PCT Thru-Hike 2023

Back At It!

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Hello Hiking for Hunger community! We know it has been quite some time since we were last active on this account. We want to first of all thank y’all for bearing with us this last year and then some- a lot has been happening and changing in our lives since we finished hiking the #appalachiantrail (AT) in July of 2021, and our focus had to shift to some other projects and life things. 

But we’re back now! And so excited to announce that we will be thru hiking the #pacificcresttrail (PCT) this spring! Not only that, but we will be fundraising again for the amazing @manna_foodbank while we hike. We are beyond thrilled that we have this special opportunity to once again combine our passion of thru hiking with our passion of being a part of the fight to end hunger in Western North Carolina! 

We’ll be spending the next few months ironing out logistics as we prepare to embark on this exciting new journey- stay tuned for updates along the way!

We can’t thank you enough for believing in us while we hiked the AT. We hope you’ll join us on this new adventure as we take the PCT and food insecurity head on.

With Love,

Hero and BAM!

#hikingforhunger #mannafoodbank #pacificcresttrail #PCT #PCTthruhike

#PCT2023 #foodinsecurity #foodsecurity #endhunger #beyourownhero #doitfortheBAM 

AT Thru-Hike 2021, The “Fund-Racer”

H4H Celebration in Asheville!

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Thursday, September 23rd we will be having our Hiking for Hunger celebration in Asheville, NC! @highlandbrewing is generously allowing us to set up outside in their Meadow, and we could not be more excited- thank you so much, Highland!

Please feel free to stop by anytime between 4 pm and 7 pm. This is a super laid back, come-and-go-as-you-please type of event to help reduce overcrowding. Our main goal is to provide an opportunity for our supporters and friends to ask us questions and celebrate what we all accomplished together.

What: Hiking for Hunger Celebration
When: Thursday, September 23rd 4PM to 7PM
Where: Highland Brewing 12 Old Charlotte Hwy #200, Asheville, NC 28803

The shaving of the BAM! Beard will take place at 6 pm. If you are unable to physically be at the gathering, we will be streaming this historic event on Instagram Live. A video will also be posted after the fact on social media and the Hiking for Hunger website. BYOS! (Bring Your Own Scissors) -only kidding, we will bring all of the shaving materials, lol.

If you ordered a Hiking for Hunger t-shirt and opted to pick up at the celebration, we will have those ready for you! Thanks again to everyone who ordered shirts, and another huge thank you to @mhnuckols for hand printing these beauties!

We can’t wait to see y’all! Thanks again for being a part of this journey! ❤

All of our love,

Hero & BAM!

AT Thru-Hike 2021, The “Fund-Racer”

Katahdin Summit!

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Never in our wildest dreams could we have imagined that the Hiking for Hunger project would take off in the way that it did. $29,707.30 … we are so humbled by the compassion and generosity that has led to this number. A number that will make it possible for @manna_foodbank to help provide up to 118,829 meals to people in need in Western North Carolina. Think about that for a second, what that might mean to someone who doesn’t know where their next meal is coming from. For so many people in WNC being served by MANNA, the funds raised through this project will mean more access to healthy, nutritious meals. What that is is life changing.

This journey has been so deeply enriched for us by all of you- your support of this cause and encouragement along the way has buoyed us and left our hearts so full of determination, inspiration, love. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. Thank you for being a part of this- we are all Hiking for Hunger.

There’s still time to donate and have it count towards the Bye Bye BAM! Beard Challenge. We now need just under $300 to reach our goal of $30,000. If we can get there before August 25th, Hero will shave BAM!’s beard off at our celebration party in Asheville, NC in September (date/time/location TBD). $5 of every H4H commemorative tee shirt will be donated to MANNA, so get in your orders before August 25th (longer reminder post about tee shirts coming your way in the next few days).

You all truly are our heroes. ♥️

With hearts full of gratitude,

Hero & BAM!

AT Thru-Hike 2021, The “Fund-Racer”

100 Mile Wilderness Matching Gift and Updates

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Hello Amazing Hiking for Hunger community!

We have a few updates and announcements.

With your help, we have raised over $24,400 for MANNA FoodBank so far! That is over 97,600 meals for our neighbors in WNC.

We are currently in Monson, ME and have less than 115 miles left to Katahdin. If all goes well we plan to summit on Friday July 23rd.

MATCHING GIFT!
For the final week (July 16-23) donations will be matched up to a total of $1,000 by an anonymous donor. Please spread the word – tell your friends and family! We are hoping to raise over $26,000 before we finish the Appalachian Trail. During this week your donations will go twice as far towards that goal.

Post Summit Plans
After we finish the trail we will continue to raise money for MANNA as we work on getting our Journal Posts out for you all to read and see.

BYE BYE BAM! BEARD CHALLENGE!
BAM! has challenged you all to see if we can raise a total of $30,000 for MANNA by his Birthday – August 24th. If we reach $30,000 HERO WILL SHAVE HIS BEARD! And we will do it live at a celebration with our MANNA community in Asheville in late September. We will also stream the video live on social media for folks who cannot attend the celebration in person!.

BAM! will be stoked if we reach $30,000 dollars raised by his birthday… he’s not as excited about shaving off his beard. He has been grooming and growing his beard for the past 6 years. Now at the end of the trail it is the longest it has ever been. But, he would be stoked to shave it if it means more people in our Western North Carolina community have the food they need.

T-SHIRTS
We will also continue to take T-shirt orders until August 25th and $5 of every shirt payment will be donated to MANNA and count towards our ultimate goal of $30,000. See details about how to order t-shirts in our previous post.

BLOG UPDATE:
We are sorry that we have not posted a blog since the Delaware Water Gap. We have been keeping notes, taking photos, and writing. However, we have run out of space on our website and can’t post another full blog with pictures unless we purchase more data. We aren’t sure if we want to continue forward and put more money into this platform or look into other options. Either way, we are going to wait to make this decision until after we finish the trail.

We will get the rest of our Journal entries and pictures out to you all. However, they will have to wait until after we summit Katahdin. If you would like to see pictures and videos of our last 115 miles on trail please follow us on Instagram @hikingforhunger or Facebook by searching Hiking for Hunger. If you do not have Instagram or Facebook we are sorry but, we don’t have another way of sharing our journey at this time. We are working on a YouTube channel but still not proficient in posting videos yet. You can find us on YouTube by searching Hiking for Hunger and we will keep working on it and post future videos through this platform.

Thank you all so much for your continued support!

We Plan to Finish Strong for our WNC Community!

Hero and BAM!