VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — September 25, 2017: The concern that sparked a life-changing initiative for hundreds throughout Hampton Roads is headed across the border, where, according to the North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Point-in-Time Count, respectively, Wake County, North Carolina, has the second highest rate of homelessness statewide with a reported point-in-time count of 11,448 homeless individuals in April 2017.
The statistics are sadly startling, say Jim White, national spokesman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and Elizabeth Hurley, a Raleigh-Durham registered dietitian and certified personal trainer with a passion for her home community. White is also the founder of Hampton Roads-based Jim White Fitness and Nutrition Studios and the LIFT Fitness Foundation (formerly the Jim White Fitness Foundation).
Inaction doesn’t sit well with these fitness professionals, so White and Hurley have teamed up for the cause with expansion of White’s signature LIFT program from Virginia to Raleigh. To kick off the LIFT-expansion fundraising effort, Hurley, who is launching LIFT Raleigh as its executive director, plans to run in the third annual White House 2 White House event, a 200-plus-mile, 36-hour relay from Virginia Beach to the nation’s capital Nov. 12 and 13, in coordination with National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. She hopes to raise $10,000 to bolster the LIFT Raleigh pilot program into 2018.
Since its 2014 inception in Hampton Roads, Virginia, LIFT has worked to reboot hundreds of lives by Lifting Spirits, Improving Bodies, Feeding Souls and Transforming Lives.