Clackamas Community College President Tim Cook is on a mission to run to all 17 Oregon community colleges this summer to raise funds and awareness for students’ basic needs. He ran into Bend and Central Oregon Community College Monday, day 15 of his planned three-month trip.

Cook, 56, felt that he needed raise awareness of the needs of community college students among legislators and community members. He wants people to realize what community college students are facing regarding homelessness and food and housing insecurity. Oregon has over 200,000 community college students, which make up more than half of all higher education students enrolled in the state.

His team has raised over $50,000 so far. The funding will be split between each school.

During the pandemic, Cook learned of another professor who biked to all of the community colleges to raise funding for students. He thought, “if he could bike that distance, I bet I could run it,” he said. Over three months, Cook will run over 1,500 miles throughout Oregon.

“If I could really just dream it, at the end I’d hope that there’d be some legislation, that there’d be some stable funding for basic needs support,” he said in Bend Monday. “There are people that are living in their cars, there are people that are forgoing food so that their kids can eat, or so that they can pay for a book. People are struggling, and for me that’s just not right. When someone’s coming and trying to better themselves, they’re trying to get a degree, they’re trying to get a better job, we need to do what we can so they’ve been fed, they have a place to sleep, so that they can learn.”

While in Bend Monday, Cook joined with a group of COCC students to run from the campus’s Cascade Culinary Institute to Coats Campus Center, where they were met by a group of COCC faculty, including outgoing President Laurie Chesley and incoming President Greg Pereira, whose first day was Tuesday.

Cook has run about 400 miles so far from school to school to school, and has 14 more colleges to visit. This trip took over a year to plan, he said. Sponsors donated a sprinter van for his team and Nike donated shoes. Gas and funding for other necessities were also donated. Cook’s wife, Paddy, is joining for the entire journey, and they have friends helping out. There are always two people in the sprinter van, and people in another car closer to Cook in case he needs help or supplies. He’s involved administrators at each college as well.

“It’s kind of a statewide effort,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about it for about two years, we’ve been planning it for a year, the logistics of this were insane.”

He ran close to 27 miles Monday, he said, and is averaging 31 miles per day. He’s been listening to music and audiobooks while he runs.

“It’s hard,” he admitted. “My feet hurt, I’m tired of being out in the sun all day, but overall, it’s going pretty well. But it’s a challenge, for sure.”

Cook has been enjoying visiting in towns he’s never been in and talking to people about his trip and mission. He’ll turn 57 next month, while on Oregon’s coast as part of this trip.

“Today felt a little bit like a break, but it was super hot,” he said of his run Monday. “It’s amazing. There are parts where I don’t feel as safe, where there’s not as much room on the road to run, but I haven’t had any what I would call really scary situations, it’s just a little stressful. But most of the time, I’m out on these secondary roads where I hardly see any cars. I see lots of deer and elk and wildlife, and I’ve had this opportunity to go from town to town and see places I’ve never seen before. When you’re on foot, you see everything.”

Next, Cook and his team will head to Klamath Falls and Klamath Community College, which will take six days. From Klamath, they’ll head to Medford, then Coos Bay and then toward Umpqua and Lane Community College. They’ll wrap up at Columbia Gorge Community College around Aug. 8.