3,000 km run

Below is the text from the 3,000 km run fundraising page in English:

I’m Shin Fujiyama and I’m running 3,000 km from the US-Mexico border to Honduras with the goal of fundraising to build ten schools in Honduras. After having run 250 km in the previous challenge to rebuild a school in Tegucigalpa destroyed by hurricanes, more than 2,500 communities in Honduras sent me requests asking for help for their schools and this challenge is an answer for them. Ten schools is a grain of sand for a problem of this magnitude. But I will give my all since I personally met the parents who sent the applications.

I visited schools and saw that too many children are studying under trees or in rotted classrooms or classrooms destroyed by hurricanes. I realized that they have big dreams but without a good education, everything will be more difficult for them. I will run 42 km daily from Reynosa across Mexico. I will pass through Guatemala and enter Honduras and finally reach San Pedro Sula. I will rest once or twice a week to record videos about Mexico, its cities, food, and inspiring stories of its people. 

The race starts on July 15 and we want to reach San Pedro Sula in October.

How can you help?

You can help us by donating to the campaign, sharing the photos and videos, becoming an official sponsor of the challenge (write to us at [email protected]), helping us with accommodation along the way, or simply going out to the streets to give me water or words of encouragement. If you are an influencer, you could share information about the challenge or run a day with me if I am passing through your city (you can write to us on FB or IG at @teamshinfujiyama). Any questions, you can contact us at [email protected].

I am a Japanese-American athlete and the founder of One Thousand Schools, a foundation that since 2007 has had the mission of building one thousand schools in Honduras. I began working with disadvantaged communities in Honduras as a college student and for my work I have won the CNN Hero award. So far, we are building school number 73. In 2020, I opened a YouTube channel inspired by the Mexican YouTuber, Luisito Comunica. On my channel which has 1 million followers, I publish videos about Honduras, its cities, inspiring stories, little-known tourist places, challenges I do to fundraise, and my travels.

I am not a professional marathon runner, but I have been an athlete my entire life, playing soccer in college, lifting weights since I was 15, and competing in several half marathons. Last year, I trained four days a week to run 125 km from Guatemala to San Pedro Sula to build a school in Chamelecon. Afterwards, I trained five days a week to run 250 km from Chamelecon to Tegucigalpa to rebuild Escuela UNAH Experimental in Tegucigalpa. For the 3,000 km Challenge, I have been training six days a week.

The challenges

To start the challenge, I need to run 230 km in the desert between Reynosa and Monterrey, where temperatures reach 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of the visa dates they gave Frankleen, my cameraman, we needed to start the race in July, the hottest month of the year. I need to run 42 km a day (and no less), since said visa expires in September and I don’t want to be without my companion. We also have to cross areas with bears, snakes, dangerous mountains, and areas where we will have to seek the support of the local police.

The schools

The goal is to build ten schools. Each project has an average cost of $46,000 and we will finance one project at a time, starting with Escuela Dionisio de Herrera in Rio de Piedras, San Pedro Sula. We have already selected eight of the ten schools that we will benefit from the challenge. Below is more information about the first project:  

We hope to build three classrooms at Escuela Dionisio de Herrera in Río de Piedras, San Pedro Sula. After 90 years without maintenance, the walls and ceilings of the old school have collapsed. The wooden floor has rotted. For safety reasons, students can no longer use these classrooms, forcing multiple grades to share classrooms or teachers to turn away new students due to lack of space. The estimated cost of constructing three new classrooms is $46,000.