Just a few miles into her runs the clamor of Twyla Luke’s everyday life fades away.

“I love it — it’s mind clearing, time to meditate,” says the Sequim resident.

“I can fix the world on my runs.”

On her next long run Luke hopes to help fix her own part of the world, as she prepares to run 50 miles on her 50th birthday.

Luke looks to raise at least $5,000 on Sunday, Sept. 30, to help the Sequim Food Bank purchase fresh produce during the winter months.

Dubbed “50 Miles for $5K,” the fundraiser was something Luke had been thinking about for about two-and-a-half years.

No stranger to helping out at the food bank, Luke — who serves as a youth leader at her Seventh-day Adventist Church — and fellow church member Wayne Christensen started a program to have the church youth and members serve the hungry in Sequim with meals on Sundays.

“To me, being a Christian isn’t being a Christian without reaching out,” Luke says.

The group’s first meal was Super Bowl Sunday in early 2016, Luke recalls, and saw just a handful of folks show up. Since then, twice a month, rain or shine, the group feeds groups as small as four up to about 16.

“These are people who really need a meal,” Luke says. “Honestly, most of them just really need a friend.”

One of Luke’s other passions is running. No stranger to putting in the miles, she says she ran her first race as a third-grader and has been running off and on since.

With the long distance idea percolating in her mind, Luke approached food bank representatives with an idea that her 50-miler could go to help raise funds for growing property adjacent to the food bank for the facility’s operations. (In years prior, Luke’s church had considered buying the property and collaborating with the food bank, Luke says, but the proposal fell through.)

That’s when Samantha Troxler, Community Engagement Coordinator for the Sequim Food Bank, proposed a plan that would help food bank users more immediately and directly: use the run to buy fresh fruits and vegetables during the winter months.

“Sam was right; the winter months are brutal for us (for fruits and vegetables),” food bank executive director Andra Smith says.

“People don’t want to give to something they can’t see,” Luke says, but people are more likely to support healthy eating.

Her fundraiser has already raised more than $2,200 in 45 days.

On the run

With her goal and target set, Luke began preparing her body for what amounts to almost two marathons, back-to-back. She added several organized runs, both in Washington state — the Sequim-Port Angeles North Olympic Discovery Marathon (relay), the Rhody Run in Port Townsend (twice), the Skagit Valley Flats Marathon in Burlington — and across borders — the Bizz Johnson 50-kilometer race in Susanville, Calif., and the Jerusalem Marathon — in addition to training runs.

Her longest run to date? The final 35 miles of an 85-mile run in November of 2017 alongside Sequim’s Chuck Milliman as he, coincidentally, ran to raise funds for the Sequim Food Bank on his 85th birthday.

“She was the best help,” Milliman says.

“He’d already run 50 miles (by that point),” Luke recalls.

That run itself didn’t seem to take its toll because the pair were taking breaks often, Luke says … until she went home.

“I could hardly get out of my car,” she says.

For Luke, running long distances isn’t too tough past the first few miles, which are not pleasant.

“I know what sits on the other side of three or four miles: my body feels OK,” she says.

On Sept. 30, she’ll have many more miles to do. Luke says she’s planning to start at 5 a.m. at the Olympic Discovery Trail (ODT) trailhead at Diamond Point Road. Her course follows the ODT to Port Angeles and out onto Ediz Hook before turning back east toward Sequim, finishing at her family’s home off Kitchen-Dick Road.

She’ll have support from several family members, Luke says, but notes she wouldn’t turn down any community members out on the trail to cheer her on.

“I would be thrilled if i could complete it in twelve hours,” Luke says.

To donate, go online at the food bank website at sequimfoodbank.org, on facebook at www.facebook.com/donate/307389839819653, or mail a check to the food bank to: PO Box 1453, Sequim WA 98382.

See Luke’s fundraiser on facebook here.