Forty-two days after lacing up his running shoes in Washington, D.C., Kenneth Anderlitch completed his roughly 1,800-mile run to San Antonio on Thursday.
His vibrant tattoos were glistening with sweat as Anderlitch broke through a makeshift finish line streamer and was welcomed by a raucous crowd of friends, fans, coworkers and residents at Haven for Hope, the city’s largest homeless shelter and resource hub.
After taking a few moments to drink some water and rest his weary limbs in private, Anderlitch, 36, emerged with two thumbs up to the question: “How does it feel?”
“Good,” he told reporters with a smile. Since he left D.C. on Sept. 30, he has run an average of 42 miles each day. Thursday, he ran 38 miles from New Braunfels.
The “Run Ken Run” campaign raised $48,406 to start a new addiction recovery program, Families in Recovery, in San Antonio that will allow parents and guardians to stay with their children during addiction treatment.
His goal was to raise at least $90,000 — or $50 per mile. Donations can still be made online.
Though he shies away from taking the credit — and doesn’t enjoy being in the spotlight — his colleagues point to Anderlitch as the driving force behind Families in Recovery.
Many parents avoid recovery programs altogether because it means leaving their children, Anderlitch said.
“I’ve seen too many families get broken up having to go through early stages of recovery and being put into that place of a hard decision, and so I don’t think that it’s fair,” he said.
Anderlitch’s mother died of an overdose when he was 18, after several periods of separation from her children while she sought treatment. A former client of Haven for Hope, he now works there as a campus life senior supervisor and is eight years sober.
There are a few treatment facilities across Texas that allow children to live with their mothers in recovery, but there are none in San Antonio and none in the state that admits men and allows them to stay with their children.
Currently, Lifetime Recovery’s comprehensive treatment services of substance use disorders are only available for men in its 94-bed facility. But in May, the nonprofit will open a 48-bed facility for women. Lifetime Recovery will then welcome women from Haven for Hope freeing up 10-12 rooms for parents and children within Pay it Forward’s program on Haven’s campus.
The run from Washington, D.C. to San Antonio is more than double the path Anderlitch took from El Paso to Louisiana in 2022. He ran 840 miles to raise funds for Pay it Forward SA, which operates a dormitory at Haven that provides specialized care and programming for addiction recovery. He raised $56,897 and burned through 14 pairs of shoes. His journey was made into a documentary by filmmaker Adam Dusenbury.
This time, he went through nine pairs of shoes and another documentary is expected to be completed by Feb. 1.
What’s next for Anderlitch?
“My couch,” he said.
This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Adam Dusenbury’s name.
