Anne Mahlum's Homeless Running Club: Inspiring Change

[Ivan Seeking]

Anne Mahlum is a 27-year-old marathoner. And on her predawn runs in Philadelphia, she kept passing a group of homeless men.

"They would say, 'Hi' or they would say 'Hi Anne' or 'There's the crazy runner.' 'How many miles are you doing?'" Mahlum recalled. "And they would smile and sort of applaud and cheer for me, while I would start my day."

But one day in May, Mahlum said, "I looked back, and I was like, 'I am cheating these guys. Why am I just running past them and leaving them there?'" [continued]

You can watch the video at the top right corner of the screen.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/PersonOfWeek/story?id=4003180&page=1

Here is the website
http://backonmyfeet.org/main/index.html

 

[Mororvia]

Good find, thanks for the story!

 

[Astronuc]

Anne Mahlum is quite an accomplished person!
http://backonmyfeet.org/main/areas/about.us/staff/anne.mahlum.html

Some words she lives by:

"You have to be the change you want to see in the world."

"While we cannot control everything that happens to us in life, we can control how we respond."

"Watch your thoughts for they become your words, choose your words for they become your actions, understand your actions for they become your habits, study your habits for they become your character, develop your character for it becomes your destiny."

 

[Huckleberry]

This story made me grin ear to ear.

I'm not surprised that she received so positive a response from the homeless people in her area. She's not offering any handouts or judgements that only serve their current condition. She offers them a chance to accomplish something without any interference from society. For many homeless that is a powerful incentive.

I noted in the video that they were singing military cadence very loudly as they ran at 5AM. They must have known that this could disturb some people in the areas that they are running, but they do it anyway. It suggests to me that they do not want to be ignored. They want consideration from good-hearted people, which is far better than any handout. The singing also serves as an irritant to those that would choose to ignore them.