Purpose

Tenderfoot Fair Trade Learning Lab’s goals are 3-fold: to foster self-reliance, to teach sustainable habits and ways of thinking, and to make a college education, particularly a liberal arts education, more affordable.   This organization grew out of the founders’ desire to do more than simply…

Learn More

Hike-a-Thon

We’re thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail – all 2,190 miles of it – as a fundraiser to raise both awareness and startup funding for Tenderfoot. A portion of the dollars raised will go toward our startup costs (most likely purchasing a 10+ acre piece of…

Learn More

Tenderfood

Encouraging self-reliance is one of our primary goals, and what better way to do that than through food? Tenderfood is a monthly get-together when we make and eat something from scratch, then send home extras with our chefs so they can share the deliciousness…

Learn More
Instagram
We crossed hundreds of bridges as we hiked the full length of the Appalachian Trail, but this was the very last one. A fellow thru-hiker snapped this picture, catching us in the act of one of our trail traditions: kissing on every bridge. This habit was inspired by @mountunion, the college where we met as students and later reunited as colleagues. Mount Union has two lakes, and campus lore says that if you kiss someone on the bridge that crosses them, you'll marry that person. We're already married, but we chose to take this tradition to the trail for a few reasons: •Stopping at every bridge meant we took a moment to truly notice streams, rivers, and waterfalls. Mountain views were beautiful, but fairly plentiful. Water views were less common and oh-so rejuvenating. After collecting and filtering every drop we consumed for 7 months, we feel deep awe and respect for water. •Kissing on every bridge made it hard to get too far away from each other. The trail isn't generally wide enough to walk side-by-side, and it's easy to get separated over time as we each navigated climbs and obstacles at our own pace. So, waiting for each other at bridges was a safety measure that ensured we had landmarks to report to rescue personnel as last points of contact in the event that one of us went missing. (We also waited for each other at road crossings.) •Perhaps most importantly, Kissing Bridges required that we had to be happy enough with each other to pucker up whenever we came upon a bridge. Sometimes this meant standing on the bridge for a while to hash through things. Maybe we wouldn't go as far as we wanted that day, but we didn't let small annoyances fester, and we believe this practice helped us make it the full 2,190 miles feeling like a team. It took us until the very last day of our 210 days to get a picture, but we're so very happy to have captured such a core element of our hike. #teachingsofthetrail #safetyfirst #honeymoon #kissmeyoufool #tenderfootadventures #appalachiantrail #AT2018 Alas, we share the final hours of our Appalachian Trail adventure. We are thankful, beyond words, to those we have met, to those who have supported us from off trail, and to our tribe. "Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations." -H.D.Thoreau #goinghome #thruhikers #appalachiantrail #hikeathon #honeymoon #whiteblazesonly #501c3 31 miles left on trail and we're a sea of emotions, but the most dominant one is expressed in this silly video. This is for all of our supporters, our current donors, and our future ones. Some days have been gorgeous, more have been wet, and lately most have been cold, but our sense of responsibility to and gratitude for all of you has kept our feet moving forward for 7 months now. https://tenderfootlearninglab.org/campaigns/appalachian-trail-hike-a-thon/ #loveourtribe #herecomesthesun #philanthropygoals #nonprofit #501c3 #appalachiantrail #at2018 #tenderfootadventures
Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Donate or Pledge Now!
  1. Appalachian Trail Hike-a-Thon
Contact Tenderfoot
close slider