After 16 FULL 12 hour days and nights, our beloved Racy Verna is ready for her new home. We sweat and toiled to make her shiny and new and as the photos show, she cleans up pretty good!
It took longer than we expected, (it always takes longer than expected on this Run For One Planet journey, it seems). However, the results were as we’d worked so hard for, a new Racy, inside and out!
Steph scrubbed and cleaned in places you’d never think road grime would land. And her marathon painting sessions are now the stuff of legend and almost as long as her marathon was, running through the hills of Northern OntarioJ. But the end result is a fresh take on Racy’s interior, complete with new screws to keep the window valances up and the daylight in! Thanks to our very best good friend, D Neil (and his wife Lori) for the Sunday drive by, to help in that department.
She’s never looked fresher and more ready for new owners to love her and keep her parked (for longer than 8 hours), so she can give back with a nice, comfy camping experience.
I had the marathon experience of what felt like a double marathon, up hill both ways and the added bonus of driving wind and rain in my face! I was reduced to “REALLY small steps adding up” in order to go inch by inch along Racy’s exterior to remove the glue residual from our sponsor logo’s you all read about in the last blog. It was a “Matt’s having a meltdown” for 6 full days, as I had to literally go no longer than an inch at a time to get all the glue balls off, before moving on to the next inch of her lovely and gluey surface.
The great thing about extreme weather over a year is, logo’s that get baked in the sun after getting soaked from the rain and leave a really sticky mess on the paint and you (me in this case) can’t move on to the fun part, “cut waxing”, until the dirty job of glue removal has been completely complete. And I mean EVERY piece of “booger-like” glue residual. It wasn’t pretty folks, but we had a mission to complete and by golly (can’t believe I just said by golly) we were going to get it done!
So let us know what you think! She’s pretty! And if anyone knows someone who can feel good about an RV named Racy Verna who did the journey of her life. And yes, gave us a “little” grief (to get her fixed and repaired daily for her new owners piece of mind), she received an A-Class bill of interior and exterior health from her doctor. Let them know we even replaced the fridge door and got to the bottom of her “stinky in the heat” bathroom condition.
We’ll miss you Racy and wish you and your new owners, all the best for a looooooooong relationship together.
You took us on the journey of our lives and sheltered us from the masses.
Vancouverites Matt Hill and Stephanie Tait ran 17,000 kilometres around North America, talked to 25,000 kids and wore out 14 pairs of runners in one year, in their Run for One Planet tour to inspire people to environmental action.
When they wanted to do something for the planet, Matt Hill and Stephanie Tait started small – hanging clothes to dry instead of in a dryer, using a cloth shopping bag, leaving the car at home for short trips.
Those steps inspired them to do something epic, to inspire others to also do something nice for the planet, through small actions.
So they decided to run a marathon every day around North America – that’s 26 miles, or 41 kilometres a day – for a year.
On May 4 last year they left Vancouver to begin their Run for One Planet. They embarked on a 17,000-kilometre journey of a lifetime, running doggedly through 10 provinces, 25 states, 14 pairs of runners, all kinds of weather, and inspiring thousands along the way.
They talked to more than 25,000 school kids and hundreds of adults.
A year later, on May 8, they returned to a heroes’ welcome to Vancouver, which proclaimed the date as Run for One Planet day.
They believe a lot of small changes can add up and affect the planet – all in a good way.
“This is really about inspiring a continent to look at the way we do things. It all starts with one small step. One action can actually make a lot of difference,” said Hill.
They also hope to raise $1 million for a Legacy of Action Foundation, in partnership with the Vancouver Foundation, to provide seed money for kids’ initiatives, to support peer tutors and a Team Run for One Planet, comprised of kids 12 and under, to run in the annual Earth Run, (which started this April).
“Kids especially understand small actions and personal commitment,” said Tait. “We use the ‘trickle up effect’ – the kids teach their parents, for instance, to stop using plastic.”
On Wednesday, Tait and Hill spoke to Abbotsford Community Services staff about their marathon experience.
ACS is supportive of the ecology and physical activity, said spokeswoman Janna Dieleman, noting that last year, ACS adopted an environmental policy to guide the agency’s actions.
“We’ve always done recycling – the Abbotsford-Mission Recycling is one of our programs. We decided to make it more of a concentrated effort internally for ourselves. So we work really hard to recycle, reduce and reuse.”
Their Montrose Street offices have compost bins, and the non-profit agency looks for ways to reduce consumption of goods, said Dieleman.
This spring, ACS issued pedometers to each staff member for a “walk around the world.” Teams and individuals recorded the steps they walked daily over the six-week program, said Dieleman.
Twelve months after the official launch of the Run For One Planet program, British Columbia-based marathon runners returned to Vancouver on May 8 following an ambitious year-long run to promote environmental action.
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By Khalila Hammond
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In December 2006, after wondering what could be done to inspire environmental action in North America, Matt Hill and Stephanie Tait created the Run for One Planet program—a carbon-neutral year-long run around the continent aimed at encouraging green initiatives and healthy living, but Hill and Tait had no idea that what would start out as a crazy dream to inspire change, would turn out to be the greatest environmental movement the two would encounter to date.
Hitting the Ground Running
As running partners, Hill, a seven-time Ironman competitor and actor whose credits include movies such as “Shanghai Nights” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III,” and Tait, an international speaker and personal success coach, often found themselves deep in discussion during their runs about the state of the environment and how small lifestyle changes could help change the world they live in. With the goal of focusing on inspiring children—the individuals who would ultimately pave the future of our environment, Hill and Tait combined their love for running with an educational program aimed at teaching elementary school students that “small steps add up.”
Kicked-off in Vancouver in May 2008, the duo set out to run eastward across Canada, down the eastern seaboard of the U.S., westward across the southern U.S. and then back up through the western U.S. coast to arrive back in British Columbia
During the 12 month tour, the couple ran a total of 17,000 kilometres, through hundreds of Canadian and U.S. cities and towns inspiring thousands of children and adults to take environmental action. To improve the environment, Hill and Tait believed that while most people wanted to do good things for the environment, many were overwhelmed with the amount of information available, especially where the issue of climate change is concerned.
Using the marathon symbolism to emphasize the message that the smallest of actions can make the biggest impacts, Hill and Tait encouraged children and adults to make a collective effort to improve not only their health but also their environment by taking small actions from practicing recycling methods such as composting to techniques and conserving energy to promoting the use of biodiesel.
Backed by Biodiesel
In alignment with the tour’s message of inspiring environmental practices, Hill and Tait took the opportunity to showcase the many sustainable alternatives available for vehicles and homes.
Ten months prior to the tour, Hill and Tait spent approximately $20,000 to retrofit a 28-foot recreational vehicle, which they would use as shelter during their run. Equipped with solar panel roofing, low-flow water systems, organic seats and bedding, and an engine capable of running on B5 to B80 blends of tallow-based biodiesel, the retrofitted RV, which the pair called the “E-volution RV,” was sponsored by a variety of green organizations such as BC Hydro and independent certified biodiesel providers around North America such as Vancouver-based biodiesel supplier company, Recycling Alternative.
The retrofitting process took approximately three months to complete with no major modifications necessary to run on biodiesel, according to Hill. “We didn’t encounter any problems during winter months,” Hill says. “We were careful about quality and cloud points and the producers we dealt with were very aware [of the product].”
Both Hill and Tait also researched a number of biodiesel producers prior to the onset of the trip and set up five biodiesel events in Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia; Regina, Saskatchewan; Ottawa, Ontario; and Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada; and three in Marin and Los Angeles, California and Virginia, in the U.S.; aimed at promoting the Run for One Planet initiative as well as biodiesel awareness in Canada and the U.S.
When running on biodiesel wasn’t possible, the two fuelled the RV on ultra low sulfur diesel. In addition to the tour, the RV proved to be a good connection point between Hill, Tait and the public. “The retrofitted RV helped inspire people to do the same in their own vehicles and homes,” Hill says.
With the initial intent to partner with as many biodiesel organizations and companies as possible to run on as much biodiesel as was available, Hill and Tait soon realized the toll the economy was taking on the biodiesel industry, especially for small-scale producers across North America along the way.
“In Canada, we knew there were less producers [so were able] to use biodiesel at least five or six times,” Hill says. “By the time we hit [the U.S.] the economic downturn was at its lowest, which made us realize the reality that small producers were facing.”
Despite, not being able to collaborate with as many biodiesel producers as they would have liked, Hill and Tait did witness what Hill referred to as an unbelievable drive to produce the fuel. In Canada, the biodiesel landscape is small but promising with at least five operating biodiesel production facilities and between 15 and 20 commercial biodiesel fuelling stations across Canada. In the U.S. approximately 1500 biodiesel retail fuelling stations currently exist, most of which are found in the Midwest and along the eastern and western coasts.
Biodiesel business seemed to be booming in cities like San Diego, California, according to Hill. “Some Californian cities were even offering biodiesel at similar prices to diesel, which helped blow the doors off of their businesses,” he says. “Economically [biodiesel] makes sense for people plus it helps the environment.” As a result, Hill and Tait were able to fill up with biodiesel approximately twelve times during their tour.
Inspiring Environmental Awareness
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With the ongoing goal of educating and inspiring 1 million new actions and raising $1 million for environmental action, Hill and Tait have spoken to nearly 25,000 elementary students at 220 schools during their tour and have raised $90,000, which will support the creation of a Run For One Planet Legacy Fund, an action-backed mission to promote kid-centric environmental stewardship. Centering on funding and education, the Legacy fund will also allow elementary students the opportunity to provide regular input to the fund’s board of directors.
“While [25,000] may not reflect our original goal, we believe we will reach the goal, it just may take a couple more years,” Hill says. From inspiring new school-wide recycling and compost projects to hearing how students and teachers alike have altered their lifestyles by using more reusable water bottles, bags, and keeping the lights and taps off whenever possible and understanding the benefits of biodiesel, Hill and Tait have helped bring green education back into the classroom.
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And with plans for another Run For One Planet-like endeavor, Hill and Tait may have the opportunity to inspire more than 1 million people in upcoming years, but only after they take a much needed break. “We’ve learned so much from this tour in terms of what works, and what’s really hard to make work,” Hill says. “Every single direction [we’ve run] has been rich with 18 feet of experience,” Hill says. “The days are long and I’m often up at 4am after going to bed at midnight. It’s the message that gives us the inspiration to keep going.”