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On New Year’s Day, country music hunk Jimmy Wayne set out on a cross-country charity walk to help raise awareness of homeless children. At the time, Wayne vowed to essentially live on the streets like a bum as he walked from Nashville to Phoenix. The cold weather and icy conditions, however, seem to have changed the country star’s tune.
Before his journey, Wayne said in a statement, “It’s going to be cold, rainy, and maybe even snowing, and that ground I sleep on at night is going to be really hard. But that’s what the homeless are dealing with each and every winter they go without a home of their own.”
As we pointed out in a previous post, you could throw a dog, a divorce, and some cheap beer into that scenario, and you got yourself the recipe for a hit country song. Wayne, however, opted to throw an RV into the mix, making his self-promoted, common street-kid image a bit lame.
According to reports in Nashville’s Tennessean daily newspaper, Wayne is now sleeping in a donated RV rather than the hard ground he had mentioned before his walk.
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Wayne has also added a follow car driven by Josh Lewis, who has a bachelor’s degree in sports medicine and was able to help Wayne with a knee injury that had stalled his nearly 1,500 mile trek. Lewis is also now carrying Wayne’s 50-pound backpack that the singer had pledged would be his only possession during the walk.
We shot Jimmy an e-mail through his charity, Meet Me Halfway, but he’s currently on the mean streets of Oklahoma, and we’re not sure if his RV is equipped with the Internet. If he gets back to us, we’ll let you know.
Despite bailing on his original plan, Wayne’s effort is more than admirable and despite having the option of sleeping in the comfort of an RV, he’s still walking across the county in the freezing cold on a bum knee.
Wayne’s partnered with Phoenix-based HomeBase Youth Services to help raise awareness of homeless kids and kids who are about to “age out” of the foster-care system and have little options other than to live on the streets.
Wayne himself spent parts of his life homeless and is using his walk to raise money and awareness of the problem.
Wayne is expected to arrive in Phoenix in early May. For more information about his cause or to donate money, click here.
