HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Frank “The Crank” Camacho’s 24-hour trek from Merizo to Ritidian raised about $15,700 to help the island’s homeless population.
That’s a mix of donations from individuals and from companies as of Saturday night.
The 24-Hour Run/Walk for Guam’s Homeless campaign started Friday morning and took him from Merizo to Ritidan and slightly beyond just so he could make the roughly 46 miles that he’d run by early Saturday morning to an even 50 miles.
“I was at 45.5 miles,” he said, adding it was such an odd number to end at. “I would just kick myself in the butt if I didn’t make it 50…so I kept running.”
That mentality to push beyond mental and physical boundaries to grow and achieve more is a glimpse of what pushed him beyond a thoughtful response to a story about a veteran who had found himself in a tough situation that just got worse — to the point where he was living on the streets without a place to call home.
Moved by the veteran’s story, he started to look into Guam’s homeless situation and found it’s a complex issue that takes a lot of effort, support, time and funding to address.
“Homelessness is not a problem, it’s the result of the problem,” he said, summing up his realization. “And I feel it must be addressed.”
Guam’s homeless count dropped between 2015 and 2020, going from 1,193 to 682, according to Guam Daily Post files. A part of that decrease is due to the change in definition for homeless. Whereas the prior definition included individuals living in substandard housing, in more recent years those individuals have no longer been counted as unsheltered for the annual Point in Time count.
Substance abuse contributes to the homeless situation — 14 were counted in 2020. Survivors of domestic violence have also been counted among those who are homeless. That count has hovered around the 15-30 mark between 2015 and 2020.
Generosity
By Saturday afternoon, the official tracker of funds donated via GuamTime.net was about $9,500. Other donations had yet to be added into the total. Throughout the event, Camacho said, people were just giving him and his team members cash donations.
“I’m just blown away at their generosity,” he said, reiterating that all of the donations will go to the Guam Homeless Coalition, Camacho said.
But he also was excited to learn that on social media, people are talking about his trek and, more importantly to this fighter, there was discussion on what more could be done to help address homelessness in Guam.
“I’m glad to see people were moved by the awareness campaign,” he said. He said he didn’t have high expectations: “I was going to be happy doing this walk and getting like $1,000 to give to the Homeless Coalition.”
As donations started coming in and with the exposure sponsorship from local organizations and companies, he was ecstatic.
Camacho said people are already asking if he’s anticipating this becoming an annual event.
“I’ll have to see,” he said with a little chuckle, saying he’d like to get some rest and think about it.
Frank “The Crank” Camacho looks out into the distance after reaching the final point of his 24-hour run/walk at Ritidian Point on Saturday morning.
Photo by Haruo Simion/The Guam Daily Post
