Thirty miles, 12 hours and over $4,000 raised. This Sunday, nearly 200 students from eight schools walked across the length of Rhode Island to raise money for malaria prevention.
The annual event began three years ago when six friends from Brown, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts University and the New England Conservatory decided to walk across the state as a challenge for charity. Each year, more and more students — from six to 27 to 114 — took part in the trek from the state’s western border to its eastern one. And this year, that number skyrocketed to 180.
“What was originally a bit-turned-fundraiser now has snowballed into something much larger,” said Xavier Bell, an MIT student and one of the original founders of the walk who has participated every year…