'Coast to Coast for Kids' runner on Route 6, expected to arrive Thursday

McCOOK, Neb. -- A long distance runner raising funds for a youth center will be in the McCook area beginning Thursday.

The U.S. Route 6 Tourist Association is helping to sponsor Aprylle Gilbert, a folk-rock singer and a long distance runner from San Jose, Califonia, who is fulfilling a dream of running all 3,652 miles of U.S. Route 6 from Long Beach, California, to Provincetown, Massachusetts, averaging approximately 30 miles per day.

Gilbert has received help in many small towns along the way on Route 6, in California, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado. She recently crossed the Loveland Pass in Colorado and coordinators estimate she will be in McCook on Thursday. She will also be staying in Cambridge, Nebraska, on Friday night and possibly Arapahoe and then Holdrege.

Nebraska's U.S Route 6 Tourist Association is looking for help showing Nebraska-style hospitality to Gilbert as she makes her way through our state, such as providing lodging for her and her support driver for a night; provide a meal and some encouragement; or walking or running with her for a short distance (she will slow to a walk for a few blocks if families want to travel alongside her). Call Marcia Kulper, executive director of U.S. Route 6 Nebraska, at 402-699-5494 or email her at marciajkuiper@yahoo.com if you are interested in helping Gilbert during her visit in Southwest Nebraska.

Follow her progress at www.route6tour.com.

Gilbert's cause and motivation are spurred by wanting to inspire youth and to raise funds for the Catholic Charities Washington Youth Center in Santa Clara County, California, that offers after-school services and a safe haven for youth in a troubled area near her home. This area of California has many gangs and a high crime rate. As a teenager, Gilbert had a troubled youth and ran away from her home in Rochester, New York. Eventually she ended up in California. Now, at the age of 45 and as the mother of two children, she will literally be running back -- all the way from the West Coast to the East Coast.

When her run is finished, Gilbert plans to write a book and to produce a video chronicling her adventure, the people she met, and the places she visited along the way.