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Women to Walk 300 Miles to Spotlight Darfur

Mark Shantz/SUNCOAST NEWS

Joanna Kehr, left, and Stacy McMahon telling the Dunedin City Commission about their plan to walk the 300 miles from Dunedin to Key Largo, beginning Nov. 3, to call attention to the genocide and plight of the refugees in Darfur.

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By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: October 27, 2007

DUNEDIN, Fla. - DUNEDIN, Fla. - What Stacy McMahon remembers most about visiting Anne Frank's home in Amsterdam was McMahon's lack of comprehension how the Holocaust could have occurred.

"How did the world let it happen?" she asks, still unable to grasp the enormity of the systematic campaign of slaughter.

Years later, when confronted with the atrocities in Darfur, a region in the country of Sudan, in northeastern Africa, about the size of France, McMahon decided it was time to do something about the mass killings there.

McMahon and Joanna Kehr, a fellow Dunedin resident, will walk 300 miles from Dunedin to Key Largo, from Nov. 3 to Nov. 15, to raise awareness of the events in Darfur.

According to Save Darfur, an alliance of 180 faith-based, advocacy and humanitarian organizations formed to stop the slaughter in Darfur, as many as 400,000 thousand have been killed and up to 2.5 million displaced and are now living in refugee camps.

Women have been systematically raped and murdered in front of their children.

Ethnic conflict

The ethnic conflict, which began in 2003, is between the Sudanese government and an Arab-speaking militia, known as the Janjaweed, on one side and mainly land-tilling anti-government ethnic groups on the other.

McMahon, the mother of four, and Kehr, the mother of one, have formed a group, "Mothers Walking for Others."

The women will concentrate on Darfur for the next couple of years but will expand to other humanitarian causes in the future.

Dunedin Mayor Bob Hackworth invited McMahon and Kehr to appear before the City Commission on Oct. 18 to describe their project.

Before deciding to walk, both McMahon and Kehr were typical of many good-hearted Americans.

When hearing about atrocities around the world, they felt rage and helplessness but concluded they could do little to stop the world's ills.

"I learned about Darfur two years ago," McMahon said. "It bothered me, but it was like, I don't know what to do. I'm busy. I don't have money."

Decided to act

But in June, McMahon decided to act. She still does not understand why.

She and her husband John were watching actor Don Cheadle on the "David Letterman Show." Along with other actors, including George Clooney and Brad Pitt, Cheadle is one of the founders of Not On Our Watch, an organization focusing on drawing world attention to the atrocities in Darfur.

After listening to Cheadle detail the suffering in Darfur, Stacy turned to John. "I'm going to walk to Miami," she told him.

Her words surprised her as much as John. "I don't know where it came from," she says.

Her first words to him the next day were, "I'm still doing it. I haven't changed my mind."

She called her close friend Kehr and asked, "Do you think I'm crazy?"

"No," Kehr replied, "I want to do it with you."

Both are graduates of Dunedin High School. Both have bachelor's degrees, Kehr, 33, majored in English literature at the University of South Florida and McMahon, 37, in social work from the University of Alabama.

Both waitresses

Both have worked as waitresses. McMahon still works part time at Frenchy's Cafe in Clearwater Beach.

Kehr has worked at Frenchy's and the Big Apple, in Dunedin.

Both of their mates are bartenders. John McMahon works at Palm Pavilion Beachside Grill & Bar in Clearwater Beach. Kehr's partner, Steve Pike, is at Seabreeze Lounge in Palm Harbor.

" I always cared what was going on but I never thought I could make a difference," says Kehr. "I just never acted on anything."

The women are busy planning and publicizing their walk and walking 10 miles a day to prepare them for the 20 miles daily they plan to walk on their journey to Key Largo, which they have chosen as their ending destination, rather than Miami.

Families have become co-participants.

Pike has created a Web site.

Numerous contacts

John McMahon used his numerous contacts as bartender to help raise $10,000 thus far at a fundraiser at the Palm Pavilion and other events.

The money is proof what regular, middle class people can do, says Stacy McMahon.

"None of us have a lot of money. We don't know people. We're talking $5 donations."

They have received one large donation, a $6,000 contribution from a couple who eat regularly at Frenchy's. "They're customers, not friends," says McMahon. "I chased them outside and gave them hugs and kisses."

The women ask all contributors to make out checks to the Darfur unit of the international nonprofit group Save the Children.

Family and friends will shadow them in cars during their walk. The women will walk on the Pinellas Trail and back roads during their trip.

Back to stopping point

To save money, on the first three days, they will be driven back to Dunedin to sleep at night. The next day they will be driven to their stopping point the previous day to begin their walk.

For future days, they will use the same method. They will stay in hotels in Arcadia and Clewiston, returning to each hotel for several nights and being driven the next day to the spot where they stopped off the day before.

In Miami, they will bunk with McMahon's brother to cut down on expenses.

They will stay in a hotel in Key Largo on the last night of their walk.

McMahon stresses they are doing it all on a shoestring budget and have cut expenses to the basics.

McMahon has budgeted $1,200 for the trip. That includes extra money for unforeseen circumstances. All money they are using for the trip is either theirs or funds donated specifically for trip expenses. Most of these contributions have come from close friends and family.

Keeping records

She has been meticulous in keeping records and sending even minimal cash contributions of only a few dollars to Save the Children and has used only designated money for the walk, McMahon stresses.

They will begin their walk with a send-off rally in Dunedin at Time Out Cafe, 355 Scotland St., one block south of Main Street on the Pinellas Trail on Saturday, Nov. 3, 8 a.m. They are inviting anyone who wants to support them to walk with them for the first mile.

For more information go to the Mothers Working for Others www.motherswalkingforothers.com > Web site.

To donate, make checks to Save the Children – Darfur and send to Mothers Walking for Others, 1846 Pinehurst Road, Dunedin, FL 34698.

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