COUNTYWIDE : Long Walk for Good Cause Hits Home Stretch

Three Oregon men who have been hiking south from the Canadian border to raise money for cancer research passed through Orange County about four months, 1,600 miles and 21 pairs of shoes after they began.

The final stretch of their trip, about 120 miles from Sunset Beach to the Mexican border, will take an estimated 48 hours, which the trio plans to cover nonstop.

“To be honest, we’re kind of numb right now,” said Josh Welborn, 25, while walking along Pacific Coast Highway past the Bolsa Chica wetlands. “We’re just preparing for what’s ahead because we’ve got a big hurdle here. But we’ve come this far, so I know we’re going to make it.”

The group decided to end their trek with the 48-hour march, he said, “as an exclamation point. We want to let people know we’re serious about what we’re doing.”

Welborn and his brother Jeremy, 22, decided to undertake the daunting journey two years ago when their grandmother, Margaret Welborn, died of cancer. They enlisted friend Mark Togni, 23, after his sister had a bout with the disease.

The Welborns founded the nonprofit Walk for a Cure Foundation, based in their native Salem, which will distribute the money they’ve collected--more than $35,000 so far--to research groups. But the trip, they say, is as much about raising awareness as about money.

“We knew that if we were going to do something we were going to have to do it big,” said Jeremy Welborn, a senior at the University of Oregon.

Along the way, they have collected nearly $6,000 in small donations from passers-by. They estimate that they have been given another $3,500 in free groceries and other supplies donated by various contributors, many of whom have had family affected by cancer. The manager of a small grocery store in Solvang, who said his mother had cancer, donated about $150 worth of food and supplies, said Togni, who attends Portland State University.

The group left Sumas, Wash., on June 18, and has kept to a schedule of four days walking, then one off for chores. They have camped most of the way, with friends and relatives taking turns driving the supply van that carries their equipment, food and small gas stove.

Their average speed has been about four miles an hour.

“It’s been like a job, 9 to 5 every day,” said Josh Welborn, who took a leave of absence from his job at a construction company to make the trip. “When there’s a day off we’re making phone calls, doing laundry, we’re working. That’s when the fatigue starts to kick in.”

But Togni added, “Just when things have gotten to the point where we could boil over and blow up, someone has stopped by and given us money or Popsicles or something, and that’s been so uplifting.”

For information about the Walk for a Cure Foundation, call (503) 283-2458, or write to 660 High St. N.E., Suite 158, Salem, Ore. 97301.