Knight Ventures on Foot from UCF to UF
This article was posted with permission from Andy Zunz, Editor in Chief/Central Florida Future.
By Lexi Merritt/Central Florida Future
A UCF student is going the extra mile for the kids this year — 117 extra miles to be exact.
Cody Lee, along with University of Florida student Kevin Tayon, will be walking from the Arnold Palmer Medical Center in Orlando to the UF Shands Hospital in Gainesville on Nov. 22 to benefit Knight-Thon and UF’s Dance Marathon. Knight-Thon supports the Greater Orlando Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and aims to raise $365,000 this year.
“It’s just outrageous how much everything costs to get treated, especially as a kid when it just comes out of nowhere a lot of the time,” Lee, a finance major, said.
Lee’s partner echoed the importance of raising money for the Children’s Miracle Network. A member of Zeta Beta Tau at UF, Tayon said he hopes that the walk will strengthen bonds between the schools.
Lee, a National Merit Scholar and member of the Theta Chi fraternity, has always been a fan of endurance events. He attempted the walk last year to test his limits but stopped about 60 miles in.
“I was just really bad at planning it,” Lee said. “I left after, like, a whole day of class and work and stuff, and then I had an IM soccer game at 10 at night, and then I left for my walk at like one in the morning.”
His girlfriend at the time, Paula Pettit, had to drive from Gainesville to pick him up.
“He really didn’t have the logistics together,” Pettit said. “This year I think he’s doing it much smarter: with a friend, for a cause and over four days.”
Lee and Tayon have set up a Facebook page where they say they hope to accomplish the walk in 40 hours of walking time over four days.
Donors are asked to either donate a monetary amount to either individual’s page, or, if they’re feeling lucky, they can choose to pledge a dollar amount for each mile Lee and Tayon walk. So far there has been $380 donated.
“I was going to do the walk anyway and so I figured I’d try to make it for a good cause if I could,” Lee said in reference to trying to do the walk this second time.
Pettit, who participates in UF’s Dance Marathon with her sorority, Alpha Omicron Pi, is proud of Lee for walking for a good cause.
“He’s doing a ridiculous, really hard-sounding task, he might as well do it for a reason,” Pettit said.
Tayon seemed confident that the walk would be a success.
“One thing that’s unique about Cody Lee is that he doesn’t have an off switch,” Tayon said. “When he gets an idea in his head that he can finish something, he does finish it.