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My name is Pete Stringer. I live in Osterville in a little house not far from where I grew up. The part about me that you may have heard about is my hobby and favorite pastime, which is running.
This April I shall be running the Boston Marathon for the 27th time and I thought it would be an excellent idea to run it for the support of the NOAH shelter in Hyannis. It is high time that the Pete Stringer that you know, that was homeless thirty-odd years ago as a result of a seemingly hopeless-addiction-to-alcohol problem, gives back to the community that saved him.
The message I most want to share is that the term “homeless” does not have to convey a permanent description, that recovery is very much possible, and I am a personal example that there is a life very much worth living for almost all the poor folk currently finding themselves out in the cold. The difference that shelters made to me in my time of desperate need was simply put, a matter of life or death. Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? But if not for the helping hand of non-judgmental social services, I could likely have given up, for I was too embarrassed, simply too far gone, to ask my family for their help. God love them, for they were there for me.
The story of running 26 miles is a journey that reflects the recovery and rehabilitation process, because it is a long way to travel (by foot!), and often the trek is undertaken by those unaccustomed to such a prodigious distance. Pursuant to this, I shall be coaching an athletic newcomer to the marathon this spring, a Ms. Virginia Ryan, who works for the Housing Assistance Corporation, and as a beginner runner, is willing to put her best foot forward and epitomize the road back that so many shelter dwellers are living every minute-by-hard-and-scary minute, day-by-day.
Won’t you please help us give them a hand? I know the way, for I have been in their shoes.
Sincerely,
Pete Stringer
Osterville
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