Valrico boy completes cross-country walk for homeless

Zach Bonner, a 12-year-old Valrico boy who set off March 23 from Seffner to walk across America to raise awareness of homeless youth, has completed his journey.

Zach arrived Tuesday in Los Angeles. He walked a total of 2,500 miles in a trek he called March Across America.

"The last 70 miles into L.A. were the worst, because my body was completely exhausted and was shutting down," Zach said. "I was having trouble breathing and was depressed. I lost 24 pounds along the way."

When he considered giving up, he thought about the homeless kids who wanted to stop being homeless but had no choice. His empathy for them kept him going.

"Right now I'm feeling pretty good. I'm excited and happy that it's all over. It was long and exhausting," he said.

"At the same time it's sad that it's done," he said. "It was fun. We've had a great time and met a lot of great friends who were super nice and showed us great hospitality along the way."

He used up seven pairs of donated shoes, trekking an average of 17 to 22 miles a day. He endured wild critters, torrential downpours and desert temperatures that topped out at 115 degrees as he walked through Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

At the end of each day of walking, he, his mom Laurie and his brother, Matt Chesney, or sister, Kelley, would mark the spot, ride in the chase car to a recreational vehicle at a campground and eat dinner.

Zach spent evenings updating his Facebook page, tweeting and occasionally doing schoolwork at Florida Virtual Academy.

"And we still had to do the same things as at home, like laundry and grocery shopping," he said.

Now, he said, he's ready to get back home to his friends, his pets and his family.

Kelley was with him only for the first part of the trip; Matt was with him through most of the rest of it.

"The last two weeks or so it was just Mom and me," Zach said.

En route he lent a hand while sharing his vision of raising funds and awareness for homeless youth, such as helping Family Promise of Ouachita in Monroe, La., spruce up an old house to be used as a day-program house.

He took homeless teens shopping for school clothes and out to see a movie in Shreveport, La.

In Dallas, he treated a group of teens from Promise House to Six Flags Over Texas theme park and read to them at a library. He took young homeless kids to Build-A-Bear Workshop and fed homeless people on the streets. He gave away more than 100 backpacks, dubbed "Zachpacks," that contained food, first aid kits, toiletries, sewing kits, candy and a small toy.

Zach gave another 500 backpacks to the El Paso Coalition for the Homeless, the Child Crisis Center of El Paso and the Sara McKnight Transitional Living Center of the YWCA of El Paso del Norte Region.

In 2009 entertainer Elton John promised to double his $25,000 donation to Zach's Little Red Wagon Foundation if Zach made it all the way to Los Angeles on his March Across America. Zach met briefly with the performer in Tucson, Ariz.

One hundred full backpacks and two Wii video gaming systems were donated to homeless drop-in centers in Phoenix. There Zach took some homeless youth to a Lady Gaga concert, 60 children to a movie and eight kids back-to-school shopping at Target, where he purchased 1,000 pairs of new socks for homeless young people.

At the end-of-the-road event in Los Angeles, Zach met family, friends and supporters at Virginia Avenue Park and walked together to the Santa Monica Pier. Recording artist Cody Simpson performed. Mary Wong, president of the Office Depot Foundation and Michael Guillen, president and chairman of Philanthropy Project, spoke.

"In the next three weeks," he said, "I'm going to film a documentary about homeless youth. We'll film in D.C., L.A., northern California, and we're working on New York."

Zach feels he is living proof that whether you're young or old, rich or poor, you can do something that can make a difference in other people's lives. He hopes many will follow in his footsteps.

"What really struck me on the walk," he said, "was that you usually only hear the bad things, but we were able to see the generosity and meet great people. I learned to appreciate what we have and to realize that when we're having a bad day, there's someone else having a much worse one."

Zach's mother said Zach's compassion for the less fortunate began when he was 6 years old and Hurricane Charley roared through Florida. He collected water in a red wagon to help residents who lost water due to the storm. The same year he formed the Little Red Wagon Foundation.

For information about Zach and his foundation, go to www.littleredwagonfoundation.com.