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What began in the late ‘90s with one family’s desire to give back in the wake of personal loss has blossomed over the years into a robust nonprofit that has impacted tens of thousands and surpassed the 20-year mile marker of serving people in need.
The Walk the Walk Foundation became an official 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in 2005, a few years after founders and longtime Severna Park residents David and Kim Mitchell began an organic movement of helping others.
“Walk The Walk got started out of my desire to buy Christmas gifts for a child that would have been my son’s age. I lost the baby right at the beginning of December in 1998,” Kim shared. “I just got a longing every time Christmas came around – I would be reminded of the loss – and I started to want to buy for a child that would have been his age.”
She contacted her aunt, a school principal in a low-income area, and got connected with a family who would benefit from Christmas gifts. The Mitchells told their friends about the family, and many of them asked if they could do the same. That first year, they collectively provided gifts for 63 children.
After Christmas, new and used items started appearing at the Mitchells’ home; people had assumed they were collecting things for people in need beyond the holidays. Kim shared that they developed a strategic plan, came up with a name, applied for nonprofit status, and the faith-based Walk the Walk Foundation (WTWF) was born.
In addition to Christmas for Children, WTWF soon established its other two signature programs: Backpacks for Kids and Diapers for Babies.
At the height of the Christmas program, the generous people who sponsored gifts for kids through WTWF were blessing roughly 2,000 children each year. Partnering churches were equipped to facilitate the program on their own, and WTWF now focuses solely on children in Anne Arundel County. Backpacks filled with school supplies and diaper donations go directly to county families as well.
In just the last five years, 6,604 county students have started their school years on the right foot with new backpacks stuffed with supplies. On Christmas mornings, 1,928 children have experienced the joy of opening gifts that would otherwise have been out of reach for their families. And WTWF has distributed over 1.4 million diapers to banks around the county, easing the financial burden of this critical supply for families in need.
Along with an army of volunteers, the Mitchells led WTWF for 15 years before handing the baton to Nicole Dolan to serve as executive director. During that decade and a half, they accumulated countless memories of families being blessed, and people young and old devoting themselves to volunteering.
Kim recounted one young boy’s joy at Christmastime.
“This little boy walks through (the gift pickup area) and he sees bikes, and he sees this really cool bike, and he is like, ‘Mom, I know it’s not for me and I know I can’t have it, but if I could ever have a bike, I would want it to look just like this one,’” Kim recalled of one distribution day. “And the person that was taking them to get their gifts said, “What’s your name, son?’ And he said, ‘Michael.’ And (the volunteer) turned the handlebar and there was the ‘Merry Christmas Michael’ sign. And the little boy just started crying.”
As the Mitchells celebrated their younger kids’ graduations and became grandparents, they began to search for someone with a heart to take over WTWF. Due to COVID, in 2020 they focused on the diaper program since kids were not returning to schools, and Christmas for Children was scaled back because people were not gathering in public. During that season, Nicole Dolan stepped up to learn the ropes of Diapers for Babies.
When David Mitchell was diagnosed with leukemia in May 2021, he and Kim handed the WTWF reins to Dolan. During her tenure as executive director, she has focused on expanding the diaper program while continuing robust Christmas and backpack operations.
Dolan shared that she learned there was a gap between how many diapers families need versus how many they were receiving. WTWF committed to doubling the diapers it provides to distribution partners around the county, jumping from 20,000 a month to 40,000 a month.
In summer 2024, WTWF moved into a larger facility in Millersville, just in time to begin receiving significant donations from Huggies and financial grants from the county that have bolstered the nonprofit’s operations.
Dolan’s priorities now include growing the nonprofit’s donor and volunteer rosters, and continuing to create structure for scalability.
“I know there’s a huge need, and I know people want to help, so how can we help people? And how can we help people help people?” she shared.
On September 24, the Dolans, the Mitchells, the WTWF board and many volunteers and friends gathered for a 20th anniversary celebration. Stories of impact were shared, the Mitchells were honored, memories were recounted, and dreams for the future were revealed.
The nonprofit’s next fundraising event is the Bay Bridge Run/Walk in November. For those interested in participating in the run or getting involved with WTWF, volunteer and donor opportunities are detailed at www.wtwf.org.
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