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ATLANTA - An Atlanta man is home after walking over 650 miles to bring awareness to poverty in the nation.
Terrance Lester started the march from Atlanta to Washington, D.C. on August 20th. But Sunday, he returned to the Peach State for the first time in nearly two months.
"It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life,” Lester said. “I remember some days walking in utter pain. I walked in 95, 98 100 degree heat. There were some days I walked in 3-4 hours of rain.”
Lester tells FOX 5 that, when he felt like quitting, he thought about the millions of people living in poverty.
"Every day when I got up I thought do I have to do this again. You know after a while the energy left and it became a weight and a burden. I called my wife and she said to keep on walking. It's not even close to what people living in poverty have to deal with daily," he said.
Lester said he average about 13 to 15 miles each day. He stayed in 54 hotels and, some nights, he even slept on the bus.
"I ate with homeless people. I walked with people who are living out of their cars," Lester said.
Lester is the co-founder of Love Beyond Walls, a local non-profit that helps hundreds of people in need each month. He says he remembers the day he first got the idea to take on this adventure.
"I was up here on a Saturday when I encountered this elderly lady. She walked seven miles to get a bag of groceries," he said.
The walk may be over, but Lester said there’s still a lot of work to be done.
"We can all come together and do something about it," he said.