Death Valley Run to Fund

Executives at Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission are planning their latest extreme fundraising event, a 250-mile run from Death Valley to the Trebek Center in Northridge to highlight the mental, emotional and physical exhaustion of people experiencing homelessness.

Ken Craft, chief executive, and President Rowan Vansleve will embark from Death Valley on Feb. 23, running 15 to 17 miles per day over a 16-day period. The 250-mile excursion is meant to serve as an analogy, where Death Valley represents “where the flicker of life slowly becomes extinguished and dreams and hope start to die, much like when people lose their housing and security and are forced to live unsheltered,” according to a statement from the organization. 

The pair will run to the Trebek Center in Northridge, set to open this spring, which is meant to represent the “important life-guiding factor that everyone requires: hope.” 

The Trebek Center, to be housed in the former Skateland building, will be a 23,000-square-foot, 107-bed bridge housing facility which will offer shelter and services for unhoused Angelenos. Named for the late Jeopardy! host, Alex Trebek, the center will be the first homeless shelter in Los Angeles Council District 12.

The “Death Valley to Hope of the Valley” fundraiser is aiming to raise $500,000 for the construction of the Trebek Center and is the second in a series of recent extreme methods the mission’s executives have used to raise awareness. In December, Craft and Vansleve spent four nights unhoused on the streets of the Valley in their “C-Suite to the Streets: 100 Hours of Homelessness” initiative.