A little rain wasn’t going to stop Mandy West and Kayla Chapman from “taking the walk” with Hanson.
Not when they’d driven 408 miles from Mountain Home, Ark., to see the trio for the first time.
“This is an awesome walk. Totally worth it,” West said. “My feet are bleeding, but that’s fine.”
West and Chapman joined a couple hundred other Hanson fans on Tuesday afternoon for a drizzly walk down Blakemore Avenue that started at Belmont University and ended at the Vanderbilt Bookstore.
The one-mile journey was part of the boy band’s “Take the Walk” tour, which began in Nashville on Sept. 10, 2007 when the group was in town for a concert at Wildhorse Saloon. Hanson has gone from city to city promoting a mile-long barefoot walk that aims to raise awareness and support for various groups who fight poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa, among other philanthropic work.
For every registered walker, the Take the Walk foundation donates $1 to one of Hanson’s partner charities, including Toms Shoes and Blood: Water Mission. According to the foundation’s Web site, about 34,032 miles have been logged so far.
Most of the walkers paraded barefoot through Hillsboro Village, with wet leaves and dirt taking the place of shoes and socks. By the time the group made it to 25th Avenue and Children’s Place — where the road becomes covered with gravel by the soon-to-be-constructed parking garage — Belmont student Tim Reitmouer said he couldn’t even feel his feet.
Taylor Hanson referred to the work being done in Africa with the money the tour has raised, including building schools, drilling clean-water wells and giving hundreds of women HIV medication, and he said he has hope that this generation will continue to do good.
“These are things that are being done because we walk in the rain — real things,” he said. “We are people who ask for accountability. We see friends and peers struggling and we say, ‘You know what, I have an hour, a dollar, an idea.’ Ideas, passion, those are the tools we have to change the world.”
Many of the participants were enthusiastic about the philanthropic work Hanson is doing and of the group’s journey from 1997’s “MMMBop.”
“I think it’s a cool idea to reconnect fans for a cause,” said Belmont student Josh Blackburn. “I’ve noticed most people here were fans in third and fourth grade, and it’s cool they’re reconnecting.”
It was Vanderbilt sophomore Lynne Moody’s fourth time to “take the walk” with Hanson, having also walked in Tulsa, Okla., Birmingham, Ala., and the previous one in Nashville.
“(The philanthropy is) a great direction for them, and their music is better than ever,” Moody said.
Nashville resident Cirbey Derricle saw the kickoff show in Nashville three years ago. She said Tuesday’s walk, which she took off work to participate in, was worth it for her.
“It hasn’t been that bad,” she said near the end. “Knowing what African children are going through, this is nothing.”
