Tennessee man walking 1,000 miles to help sick child stops in Macon
Earlier this year, Seth Mayer was at home drunk when a friend called and asked him if we wanted to go for a walk.
But his friend wasn't talking about a stroll around the neighborhood. He wanted to hike 1,000 miles on California's Pacific Crest Trail.
Mayer was battling issues with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his service in the Army. He thought it might be a good way to turn his life around, so he agreed.
"My life was really a mess, and I wasn't doing anything with it," he said. "I wanted to do something positive with my life."
He also thought he could use the hike to help a friend battling cancer. So he turned it into a fundraising effort that generated $2,500.
The walk helped him so much that when he learned in August that another friend's 11-year-old son had cancer, he decided to go for another walk.
Mayer is in the middle of a second 1,000-mile journey from his home in Clarksville, Tennessee, to Miami.
He set out Nov. 21, walking an average of 15 miles a day. This week he was trekking through Middle Georgia, and Friday morning he was in downtown Macon after staying the night at the Macon Marriott City Center. Most nights he sleeps in a tent.
"It's just something I feel like God has led me to do," he said as he walked down Riverside Drive.
He planned to head down Ga. 23 to Cochran and stay there for the night, then over the weekend he will head to Eastman and Jacksonville in southern Telfair County.
After that he will make his way to Jacksonville, Florida, then head down the East Coast toward Miami. He usually camps at churches.
He has a GoFundMe page and has raised $1,025 for the family of Daniel Burgess, who has brain and spinal cancer. Daniel's treatment is free at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, but the family needs help with travel and other related expenses.
In the process of helping someone else, Mayer has also helped himself.
"It really helps me out with my PTSD," he said. "I can't really explain it. It's still there, but I can control it now."
With the help of a couple of other friends, he has started a group called A Thousand Miles, which is dedicated to helping families of cancer victims with travel expenses. The group has a Facebook page, and Mayer regularly posts updates from his walk.
He actually arrived in Macon on Thursday morning after walking through the night. He posted an emotional video on Facebook after he got to Macon, exhausted and wet. He said he couldn't find shelter or get his tent set up due to the rain so he just walked through the night. He dedicated the night's walk to another cancer victim, Luke Halaburda, who died at age 7 of the same kind of cancer as Daniel.
"It's kids like Luke, kids like Daniel, and all the rest of the stories that really keep me going," he said on the video, choking back tears. "It really makes what I'm doing well worth it."
To contact writer Wayne Crenshaw, call 256-9725.
This story was originally published December 18, 2015 at 9:03 PM with the headline "Tennessee man walking 1,000 miles to help sick child stops in Macon ."