By Rod Hansen
Staff Writer

Saint Anselm College student Andrea Crocker embraces a friend after returning from the Road for Hope walk. Crocker marked several milestones on the eight-day journey, including her 22nd birthday. (The Goffstown News/Rod Hansen)

A joyous cheer rose from the Saint Anselm College campus on Saturday, Aug. 26, as a group of 45 students triumphantly set foot onto the college grounds.

Energetic though they were, these students had just finished an eight-day, 130-mile walk that brought deep spiritual rewards along with great physical burden.

A crowd of students and parents awaited them as they approached the school. After embracing and reminiscing about their long journey, the students marched further onto campus, and in one voice sang a song two of them had written on the trip:

“We are pilgrims on a journey,

“Our legs are tired and sore.

“And though it might be said

“We’d rather stay in bed

“It’s worth what we’re walking for.”

Thus concluded the 2006 Road for Hope, an annual walk that began in 1999 and has raised $123,000 to benefit charitable causes.

This year, students surpassed their previous fundraising total of $33,000 to benefit nonprofit organizations, including Good Shepherd Food Bank (Lewiston, Maine); St. Charles Children’s Home of Rochester, and Kid’s Café of Manchester.

The group departed from Lewiston, Maine, on Friday, Aug. 18. They walked about 16 miles per day, lugging backpacks weighing in at about 40 pounds, and sleeping in gymnasiums, children’s homes, churches and one night at the home of a walker’s welcoming parents.

To keep the hours interesting during the journey, students would walk in pairs and tell each other their life stories.

“It’s a great way to get to know somebody, and it makes time go by quickly,” said Andrea Crocker of Amherst about the practice of exchanging life narratives with other walkers.

Crocker reached a special milestone on the Road for Hope, when she celebrated her 22nd birthday on Aug. 19 with a surprise birthday cake from the EMTs and an impromptu rendition of “Happy Birthday” from her fellow walkers.

Crocker called the long trek from Lewiston “an incredible journey,” and said she most enjoyed the breaks the walkers were able to take every three hours, and the treatment of their sore feet every night by the EMTs.

Also, she said, events such as the Road for Hope offer an antidote to the negative events regularly included in nightly news broadcasts.

“You see such horrible news every day, it’s easy to get discouraged. But things like this show that people really do care for each other and want to help,” Crocker said.

Senior Amy Regan said she had often seen Road for Hope participants walking through her hometown of Buxton, Maine, during previous excursions. She said she and her roommates had decided to make the journey this year.

“I wish I had done this in earlier years,” said Regan, who is president of the Saint Anselm Student Government Association. “I’d like to encourage everyone to do this as many times as possible.”

Regan’s parents, John and Bobbie, were at the college to greet their daughter when she returned from the Road for Hope.

Bobbie Regan said she had seen this year’s group pass near her hometown in Maine, and said one of her greatest impression came from the EMTs treating the young walkers.

“It really warmed my heart to see the EMTs taking such good care of them,” she said.

Experiences such as the Road for Hope are not uncommon in her daughter’s life, said Bobbie Regan, noting that Amy had gone on missionary trips to Mexico and Nicaragua.

“This is just another chapter in her life’s journey,” she said.

The same can be said of all the other participants of this year’s Road for Hope. And if any of them are ever called upon again to tell their life story, this long walk for a good cause will surely bear a mention.