11-year-old’s walk highlights plight of homeless children

If Zach Bonner asks you to take a walk, set aside some time.

The 11-year-old from Tampa, Fla., is 50 days into the third leg of a three-year walk from his hometown to Washington to raise awareness of the needs of homeless children.

Along the way, Zach -- particularly keen to the issue even though he has never been homeless -- has set foot in Tallahassee, Fla.; Atlanta; Charlotte, N.C.; and countless other towns. He's scheduled to get to the White House on July 9.

"It's nice to know you can do something that makes a difference," he said yesterday near the Bell Tower on the grounds of the state Capitol.

While he was calmly conducting his latest round of interviews, several hundred Richmond schoolchildren jostled quietly as Virginia first lady Anne Holton and Richmond School Superintendent Yvonne W. Brandon, among others, awaited the arrival of Mayor Dwight C. Jones and the beginning of a program to salute Zach and help promote the issue.

Not far away, a camera crew was getting footage, as it has every day since this leg of the journey began May 11, for a documentary being shown on America Online's Web site.

"I never expected it to get this large," he said. Nor did his mother, Laurie Bonner, who has been with Zach every step of the way.

It all began with a few jugs of water.

Bonner said her youngest son, then 6, was struck by the need for such simple things as bottled water after Hurricane Charley ripped through Florida in 2004.

"People needed water, and we had all this water," she said.

Zach's zeal for community service took off from there. Once the water was distributed, he kept going.

He set up his own foundation -- Little Red Wagon Foundation -- to collect supplies for homeless children. He has since packed and distributed nationally more than 2,000 backpacks full of supplies.

Two years ago, he set out from Tampa for Tallahassee, figuring, his mother said, that a kid making that walk could generate publicity for an issue.

He did.

The next year, he walked from Tallahassee to Atlanta.

This year, he took off from Atlanta.

They typically cover 10 to 13 miles a day, Bonner said. They spend their nights in an RV, which they have on loan from a dealer in Tampa, and eat in restaurants from which Zach has coaxed free meals.

How he has made his journey, he said, is secondary to why. The U.S. has more than 1.3 million homeless children, he told the crowd yesterday. "They don't have the choice to not be homeless," he said.

Plenty in Richmond need the help, said Mary Herrington, who coordinates programs for homeless students in the city.

"Homeless children are invisible to most of us," she said. "Parents go to great lengths to hide it."

Contact Zachary Reid at (804) 775-8179 or .