Keeping current

Their avenue may be winding, but their goal is straightforward: to live modestly and give extravagantly. Oh, and to kayak like mad men.

In an effort to raise funds for the Gardere Community Christian School and the Interfaith Compassion Ministry, a United Way homeless outreach in Oxford, Miss., two LSU students and two Ole Miss students have formed a group called A Wake in the Current and will spend the summer exploring the lifeblood of our city and our nation.

Starting June 21 at the source of the Mississippi River in northern Minnesota, the group will kayak the length of the arterial waterway, more than 2,300 miles down to the Gulf delta, in 60 days. They will stop only to set up camp, sleep, eat and document their progress and the wilds of their surroundings with photos and videos along the way. Thanks to a donation from Apple, one of the group’s many sponsors, they will have a waterproof iPad 2 for editing and uploading content online.

“We’ll update once a day, if for nothing else, so people will know we are still alive,” says Max Zoghbi, who joins David Bonnoitt, Bowman Hitchens and Rob Treppendahl in the project and will give all proceeds from donations and sponsorships back to the chosen nonprofits. “It’s a risk. In some ways we are an unlikely group to do this, but after volunteering at the Gardere School and having it come up in conversation over and over, we felt compelled to do something to help. Personally, I just can’t wait to hit the water that first day.”

For updates and images from A Wake in the Current’s adventure down the Mississippi, log onto awakeinthecurrent.com.