Around the world on a mission

Some people give to charity, and others raise money or awareness for charity. Then there are those who tackle enormous feats for various health-related causes: cycling across the country, climbing a lofty peak, swimming a treacherous channel. We wrote about a few of these ambitious people and their triumphs and frustrations in a story titled “Fundraising’s long, lonely roads.”

One of the people we profiled was Polly Letofsky, who walked around the world to raise awareness for breast cancer. Not only did she complete her mission, but she also wrote a book about her experiences, called “3 MPH: The Adventures of One Woman’s Walk Around the World” (Tendril Press, 2010). The Denver-based Letofsky never had the disease but wanted to spread the word about preventive care to women (and men) everywhere. On her trip she also managed to help raise money for various local groups.

Part epic travel journal, part chronicle of a woman determined to accomplish her mission, the 423-page tome about her five-year, 14,000-mile trek is a quick read, thanks to Letofksy’s breezy, engaging writing style. Those who have toyed with the notion of doing something similar may be inspired by Letofsky’s adventures--or completely cured of that desire. In the original story she said on her best days she’d lead educational forums on breast cancer in obscure parts of the world, and on her worst, “I’d be completely alone and start to lose that focus. It would ebb and flow quite often.”

Those ebbs and flows are detailed in the book, which includes the frustration she felt in Asia trying to spread the word about regular mammograms: “In the U.S., New Zealand, Australia, even Singapore, it’s easy to preach about annual mammograms,” she writes, “because facilities are so widespread. But in Asia that’s not so. The only mammography machines in Thailand are in Bangkok, and mammograms are expensive. I had to alter my message in every country, and in Thailand it was downright silly to advocate an annual pilgrimage to Bangkok to prevent a disease they’d never heard about.”

Her escapades are too numerous to mention, although they include seeing her first kangaroos in Australia, learning about the fall of the World Trade Center while in Malaysia, and meeting the various Lions Club members who helped her along the way. One sign in India proclaimed, “Welcome Polly Litofsky (sic) (An unmarried American Lion member) who is on a world tour for breast cancer awareness.”

Even if a monumental charity-related exploit is not in your future, Letofsky’s book is an entertaining and uplifting story about commitment and perseverance.