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Hi everyone, my name is Robert Raab, I'm from a small town in Ohio called Sunbury, and I'm a 2010 graduate of Miami University. In the spring/summer of 2011 I'm going to be thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail as a fund raiser for the Apostles Build 2 project of the Delaware County Habitat for Humanity and this site will tell you all about it!


Why hike and why habitat:

When I decided to hike the Appalachian Trail and started my planning back in the October of 2009, I didn’t have goals of doing any fund raising in mind. It was simply that I had always wanted to do the hike. When I presented the idea to my parents, my dad said that my uncle’s friend, Jeff Alt, was someone that I should talk to that had hiked the entire trail in the past. He also wrote a book about it called A Walk for Sunshine in which he does a fund raiser hike for the Sunshine Home in Toledo, Ohio. I was about half way done reading the book when it hit me that I should make my hike a fund raiser too. However, with the short amount of time I had left and the good amount of planning I still had to do for the hike itself I didn’t think I’d be able to fit any fund raising in. So one Saturday night I told God that if we were going to do this I’d need a direction and some help. And of course, the next morning in church were Harry and Tom from Habitat for Humanity talking about the Apostle’s Build 2 project. At that point I said, OK let's do this.


The Plan:

I will start on the trail at Mt Springer in Georgia, when the trail becomes safe enough to hike, and hike NOBO towards Mt Katahdin in Maine. I hope to be able to complete the trail in five months. This goal is going to take a lot of sacrifice and determination considering thru-hikers take an average of six months to hike the entire trail.


Goal:

Since the trail is 2,178 miles long I want to do a by mile donation theme. This way each donor will be able to say that they are responsible for these two miles here or those ten miles there or that they are responsible for all the miles in New Jersey or Maryland. This way, each donor can be right there with me on the trail. I’ve set a goal of $5 per mile to make a total goal of $10,890. Every little bit helps even if it's just a dollar. It's all highly appreciated and goes towards a great cause. 

There are two ways in which you can donate.  You can click on the donate button below and use your credit card or PayPal account, or you can write a check payable to Delaware Co Habitat for Humanity and mail it to Jim Raab at 4480 State Route 61, Sunbury, OH 43074.