Trekking miles for Make-A-Wish

Many say it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. But for a group of three Oak Mountain Intermediate School teachers, the last five months have been about both.

Kim Ethridge, Amy Miller and Michelle Tindal — also known as “Chicks with Sticks” — have been hiking, walking and training since January for a 26.3-mile hike through Talladega National Forest. The hike is called the Trailblaze Challenge, a one-day event that raises money for Make-A-Wish Alabama and helps raise awareness about the daily challenges faced by families involved in Make-A-Wish.

The hike is a way to try and simulate what the kids and families involved in Make-A-Wish go through, Miller said. Rather than those daily challenges, however, participants work through the financial and physical challenges.

Ethridge first heard about the hike through Facebook. She sent the details out to a group of OMIS teachers who had hiked together in the summer of 2017.

“I’ve been doing running up to this point, and I have no aspirations to do a marathon — a half marathon was what I wanted to accomplish, but I thought, ‘We could walk 26 miles,’” Ethridge said.

Seven people showed up to their first meeting in January, and four of them chose to sign up and take on the challenge. Fellow teacher Shannon Vaughn trained with the group until March, but did not recommit based on the team not reaching its fundraising goals at that time.

Once they were signed up, that launched their 14-week training, which includes group hikes twice a month and weekly walking goals. 

The team will also raise $10,000 total for Make-A-Wish.

“We decided from the get-go that this is a team goal. It is not individual [fundraising] goals,” Tindal said. “It is all money in, and we don’t look at what our individual progress is. Our only goal is, ‘Where do we stand as a team?’”

Each woman has her own reason for participating, whether it is to give back, to reach a personal fitness goal or to get out of a comfort zone. 

Miller, who has battled breast cancer, said she’s working to exercise in the best way for herself. Before she was diagnosed, she said, she “exercised religiously” and was anathletic person.

“But having setbacks and having cancer myself, this has been, ‘Let me do what I can. I can’t run anymore, but I can walk,’” Miller said. “And I can get out of myself and do something for others.”

As they train, if she wants to stop because her heel hurts or skip a walk because it is raining, Miller said she focuses on the help it provides to others. 

Like Miller, Tindal said the hike lets her meet personal fitness goals.

“For some reason I didn’t have the power to motivate myself to do it, but with something like this, I can step outside of myself and see a greater cause,” Tindal said. “And then to have friends — ‘framily’ — that’s going to do that with you and be there for you, to support and encourage you.”

They’re propelled through their personal challenges, however, by encouraging each other and the thought of helping others.

“As far as the physical aspect, the 26 miles will be hard, but special needs families, the money is hard too. Because a lot of time insurance doesn’t’ pay for everything, so we are working really as hard as possible to raise this money,” Ethridge said. “And we’ll only be doing this for five months. But for these families, it’s for life.”

As they work toward their $10,000 fundraising goal, Chicks with Sticks has hosted events such as a percentage night at Milo’s, a BBQ and Bingo fundraiser and a meet the teacher night at their school. The events not only raise money, the group said, but also helped them connect with Oak Mountain families who are involved in Make-A-Wish. 

“A lot of us have personal connections with people that, they may not necessarily be on the Make-A-Wish list, but they could be, so we have personal reason for why we want to do this,” Tindal said.

They’ve also connected with each other over their months-long journey.

While all of the women knew each other through school, they agreed that the hike has provided a new way to bond and support each other.

“At school, we only get so much time to interact. We get to know each other to a certain extent, but I can say certainly through our training hikes, I’m absolutely spending time with people I didn’t typically spend time with before,” Vaughn said in a February interview. 

They text each other as a group to keep up with their progress and rally around each other.

“There’s nothing any of us have said to each other where the other person has judged us,” Ethridge said.

“We notice, as women, that sometimes we struggle with embracing all of ourselves, and that’s one thing that we have been working on,” added Vaughn. 

The trail also helps wipe away some of life’s stresses, Miller said, as they get to know each other and others in the Birmingham hiking group.

“The people we’re meeting along the way are just incredible,” she said. “You walk and talk, that’s what you do, so you leave the trail like, ‘Wow I have a new friend.’”

As of press time, which was about one month from the Trailblaze Challenge, Chicks with Sticks had raised $7,596. While that’s an accomplishment in itself, Vaughn said the ability to complete the full hike, in addition to reaching their fundraising goal.

“I think the moment [of change] is going to be when we cross that finish line,” Vaughn said.

For more information on the Trailblaze Challenge, or to donate, go to alabamatrailblaze.org and search “Chicks with Sticks.”