About · 7 years on
Why this walk
exists.
Plain language about who we are, what we fund, and where the money actually goes.
The cause · 2018 → today
A walk for someone who can't talk about it yet.
In March 2018, four neighbors in the Whittier neighborhood lost a friend to suicide. He was thirty-four, a high-school teacher, and he had not told anyone what he was going through. The four neighbors didn’t know what to do, so they did the only thing they could think of: they organized a walk in May along the river, and they invited anyone who’d lost someone — or come close to losing themselves — to come walk with them. About sixty people came. That was the first Long Mile.
It has been seven Mays since then. The walk is now three miles along the Mississippi East Bank Trail. Around three thousand people walk it. It raises a little over a quarter-million dollars a year for mental health programs across Hennepin County. None of that was the plan. The plan was sixty people and one Saturday.
One in five adults in Minnesota lives with a mental health condition each year. Two-thirds never get treatment.
We are a 501(c)(3) public charity registered in Minnesota — EIN 87-4621099. Every dollar raised at the walk is distributed through the Long Mile Coalition’s program fund. Ninety-two cents of every dollar goes directly to grantee organizations doing the actual work: NAMI Minnesota’s peer-support cohorts, three Hennepin County school districts’ on-site counselor programs, and the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s volunteer-training pipeline.
Who runs the walk
A four-person staff and a board of seven.
We are small on purpose. Most of the work happens between February and May; the rest of the year is grant disbursement, audit prep, and a single staff member keeping the lights on.
Maya Tindall
Executive Director
Clinical social worker for nine years before the walk; joined the coalition in 2021. Carries the only year-round salaried role.
David Okafor
Board Chair
Partner at North Loop Legal. Pro-bono counsel for the coalition since 2019; chair since 2023. Walks year five and counting.
Sara Nystrom
Walk Director
Volunteer operations lead and one of the four 2018 founders. Day-of, she is the person with the clipboard at the start line.
Marcus Lim
Volunteer & Outreach
Runs school and corporate outreach. Former English teacher in Saint Paul Public Schools; joined the coalition in 2022.
The full seven-person board is listed in our annual filing. Download the 2024 Form 990 (PDF).
Verified by
Independently graded, every year.
The Long Mile Coalition holds top ratings from every major charity-evaluation body in the country. We file a complete Form 990 with the IRS each year and publish our audited financial statements alongside.
Tax-exempt · 501(c)(3) public charity
The Long Mile Coalition · EIN 87-4621099 · incorporated in the State of Minnesota.
All donations are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by law.
May 16
Minneapolis
9 AM
Show up.
Be one of three thousand who do.
Three miles along the Mississippi. Coffee at the finish. Folding chairs.
People you’ll be glad to have met.