Walk With Me, Week Four: The Reasons We Return

Three weeks into Walk With Me, we had grown curious about the places and structures that give connection somewhere to happen.

Week four showed us what keeps people coming back.

A two-week bus trip that turned strangers into travel companions. A flying club built around a shared love of flight. A running group where a quiet newcomer slowly found his voice. A restaurant in a Nebraska village where everyone knows your name. A town tradition carried through generations. A nonprofit that relies on partners to meet the needs in front of it.

From Kansas into Nebraska and Missouri, we kept finding the same idea. Communities are held together by people who keep showing up.

People need reasons to gather and reasons to return. They need to know there will be another walk next week, another dinner on Thursday, another Thanksgiving table, another festival next October and another person who notices when they've been away.

This week, we watched returning turn into belonging.

Day 18: Salina to Junction City and Manhattan

Our first full day in Kansas started at the hotel breakfast.

More than 60 people from the Green Bay area were traveling together by bus on a two-week trip to a balloon festival in New Mexico. Many of them hadn't known each other before. By the time we met Pam and the rest of the group, they were already trading stories and jokes like old friends.

We understood. Shared travel changes relationships. People eat together, sit side by side for hours and see one another tired, excited, frustrated and curious. Conversations have time to move past introductions. Our own team has felt that happen on the road these past four weeks.

After nearly 12 miles on foot around Junction City, members of our team met Mark, a pilot and flight instructor with the K-State Flying Club. Flying brings members together, and the club gives them a place to find people who care about the same thing. Experience gets passed from one person to the next. Someone new has a reason to ask a question. Members keep seeing the same faces.

A week earlier, it had been a garden club in Colorado. Now it was airplanes. Each one gives people a shared reason to keep showing up.

That afternoon we walked through Kansas State University, where October is Health and Well-Being Month. Signs around campus carried messages like "You matter" and "Don't give up," words that felt familiar after nearly a month of conversations about belonging.

At the K-State Gardens, hundreds of pumpkins painted by local middle school students filled the grounds for the annual Painted Pumpkin Palooza, another invitation for the whole community to make a memory there.

We finished the day at Rock-A-Belly, where the owners have spent nearly four decades watching generations of K-State students come through. Students graduate, move away and come back as alumni. Over time, the restaurant has become part of the map of their memories.

A bus trip, a flying club, a campus tradition and a neighborhood restaurant. Each one gave people something to come back to.

Day 19: Lawrence to Topeka

Tuesday took us deeper into why coming back can be so hard.

In Lawrence, we met Rick Cagan, a longtime mental health and human services advocate and former executive director of NAMI Kansas. Rick talked openly about retirement and how quickly leaving full-time work can shake a person's identity, structure and sense of purpose.

One of the best pieces of advice he ever got was to know what you're retiring to.

He has spent part of his retirement reconnecting with friends from high school, college and earlier jobs. He also told us that staying connected takes deliberate effort, even for someone who values community as deeply as he does.

Drawing on decades of advocacy, Rick also talked about people coming home from prisons, psychiatric hospitals and other long stays away from everyday community life. We expect them to rejoin their communities, he said, and they need relationships, treatment and support to make that possible.

His wife, psychotherapist Victoria Cagan, gave us a new way to picture the relationships people need. She thinks of friendship as a target.

At the center are the few people we can be completely honest with, who will listen without judgment. Farther out are friends we see regularly. Beyond them is a wider circle of people we know and like.

"We don't always need 25 friends," she told us.

After days of visiting clubs and gathering places, that mattered. For some people, two or three deep relationships are enough.

Victoria also talked about the moment when someone who is already struggling finally walks into a group. If nobody greets them, that moment can confirm everything they feared. Maybe they really don't belong. Maybe trying was a mistake.

Someone saying, "Hi, come on in," can be what makes a person feel safe enough to come back.

Their friend Jolene "Jo" Andersen added another layer. Jo has spent decades in civic life, in civil rights, women's rights, disability advocacy and anti-war activism, and she served a term as mayor of Lawrence. She has built communities and organized people for most of her life.

She still wakes up lonely some mornings.

Many of the friends who shared earlier chapters of her life have died or can no longer talk with her the way they once did. Jo reminded us that loneliness can reach anyone, including people who have spent their lives bringing others together. Lives change, and the people around us change with them.

Hours later, at a gas station in Topeka, we met Jeff.

Jeff recently lost his job, and he lives out in the country. For him, distance and money are tied together. Seeing people means driving, and driving means buying gas. When money is tight, connection costs more.

He has tried going to church, and finding his way into an established group has been hard. People already have their circles.

That evening, we saw what a way in can look like.

More than two dozen members of the Topeka Trail Runners met us at Kaw Park. Hunter Munns helps lead the group, which welcomes runners and walkers of every ability. Tracy Wagner, Norma Weiser and Jackie Hanzok introduced us around and led our walk.

Members told us about a young man who first showed up quiet and reserved. He kept coming. The group let him find his own pace. Over time, he grew comfortable enough to open up.

Now, they told us, he talks all the time.

After the walk, everyone gathered for chili and cinnamon rolls. The group also has Thursday dinners, and Hunter keeps coming up with new things for people to do together. The running brings people in, and the relationships keep them coming back.

That day showed us how much a welcome matters. When someone feels included, they come back.

Day 20: Topeka

Our second day in Topeka took us somewhere we didn't expect to think about loneliness: the zoo.

All along the journey, we've noticed animals living in groups, from horses moving together to prairie dogs building underground networks. At the Topeka Zoo, the rainforest exhibit showed us living things depending on the larger ecosystem around them.

It got us thinking about the conditions around us.

Humans are social animals too. Much of the conversation about loneliness focuses on what individuals should do. Join something. Volunteer. Call someone. Leave the house. Those steps matter, and they depend on an environment where those opportunities exist and people can reach them.

That brought us back to Jeff. Living miles from town changes the equation. So does the price of gas. So does a lack of public transportation or places to gather. And when a group does exist, the experience of walking through its door can decide whether someone ever returns.

The zoo gave us a useful word for all of it: ecosystem.

Our human ecosystems include homes, streets, workplaces, schools, parks, clubs, families, transportation and institutions. Those environments shape how likely connection is.

By Day 20, we were asking a bigger question. What kind of communities are we asking people experiencing loneliness to reach out in?

Day 21: Brownville, Nebraska

Then came Brownville.

About 150 people live in Brownville, and connection runs deep there.

At the Lyceum, one of the village's restaurants, regulars were greeted by name. There's a community table, and the restaurant is as much a gathering place as a place to eat.

Darcy told us about the Thanksgiving dinner the Lyceum holds for people who might otherwise spend the holiday alone. Last year, about 375 people came, traveling from four states to share a meal in a village with fewer than half that many residents.

She described a place where neighbors organize fundraisers when someone gets sick, where nearby towns support one another's events and where relationships reach well past the village limits.

"I think we are just rich in each other," she told us.

That line captured much of the day.

Brownville has its challenges. Residents travel for many things people in larger cities find a few blocks away. The town is aging, and it needs younger people to come back if it's going to carry on. Several people we met also told us that connection there comes from each other.

"We don't thrive on trying to be entertained," Darcy said. "We entertain ourselves."

Brownie Hayeck has run an art studio in Brownville for 40 years. She described a mix of longtime residents and newcomers, historic homes tucked into wooded hills and a community that quickly pulls new arrivals into its organizations and activities.

People look in on older neighbors. They offer rides and bring meals. Newcomers, Brownie told us, can quickly find themselves part of something, with a role and a purpose.

The arts are at the center of that life. Brownville's galleries, museums, theater and concert hall draw visitors from far beyond a village its size. At a pottery studio, older artists talked about the value of staying part of a creative community, and of knowing people will notice if someone stops coming around.

By the time we left, our thinking from the drive across rural Kansas had grown more layered. Chosen solitude can feel restorative when meaningful relationships are close at hand. And whether a place has 150 people or 1.5 million, what matters is whether someone knows your name.

Day 22: The Katy Trail

After several days full of conversations, Friday gave us room to slow down.

We walked the Katy Trail through Missouri with nothing major on the schedule. We talked with one another, took in the countryside and crossed bridge after bridge.

The quieter pace mattered. We spend much of Walk With Me moving toward the next person, place or conversation. Brownville had already shown us that connection grows from the people around us. Friday made that lesson personal. Time together means more when there's room for a conversation to go somewhere.

That openness led to one of the day's most meaningful moments. When we reached our hotel, members of the staff welcomed us warmly, asked why we were traveling and began sharing their own experiences with loneliness.

It happened on its own, because someone felt comfortable enough to talk.

It's something we've seen since the first day. Some of the most honest conversations happen off the schedule. At gas stations. In hotel lobbies. On trails. In restaurants. They often begin when someone senses that the person in front of them really wants to hear the answer.

Day 23: Hermann

Saturday carried us along the Katy Trail to Hermann, where October means Oktoberfest. All month, Hermann celebrates its German heritage with music, food and traditions that draw residents and visitors into town year after year.

We spent time with a multigenerational family band that plays traditional German music. The music started with a grandfather who played during his Army years. Today another generation carries it on, including Aaron, who plays three instruments.

A tradition lasts because people keep taking part. One generation teaches the next. Family members practice and perform together, and the tradition reaches beyond the family every time the community gathers to listen. It gives people a shared history and a reason to gather today.

We also met Carter Munk, who was at Oktoberfest with friends he said he can be vulnerable around. Carter has been thinking about the gap between being connected online and spending time together in person.

His company, Pinned Social, helps friends turn online plans into real ones. The app is designed to help people decide where to go, see who's interested and follow through on getting together. Carter has described the idea publicly as a bet on in-person connection.

Carter showed us technology designed to bring people together in person. What matters most may be where a tool leads us.

Day 24: Along the Katy Trail

On Sunday we were back on the Katy Trail when the smell of chili pulled us off our route.

We had stumbled into an annual cook-off hosted by the St. Charles County Ambassadors, a group of local leaders and business owners raising money for charity. At the registration table, Traci heard what we were doing, invited us in and even gave us passes to taste the chili.

What followed was another round of unplanned conversations.

Terra described an area where businesses know and support one another, a metro region that keeps a hometown kind of warmth.

Then we met Shelia Schneider, executive director of The Kaufman Fund, which serves veterans and their families across the St. Louis region. It connects veterans to food, clothing, dental and legal referrals, mental health resources and other basic needs, and its own reporting shows more than 2,000 veterans served in 2024.

Shelia made a point we had been seeing all month. No single organization can meet every need. The Kaufman Fund relies on partners who do what it can't, and those partners rely on others in turn. A veteran may need mental health care, housing, food, transportation and help finding work, and a whole network of organizations working together can meet those needs well.

That widened our view of connection again. Communities depend on relationships between people, and they depend on relationships between organizations too. At that level, connection means knowing who else needs to be at the table.

Fittingly, we learned that lesson because someone at a registration table welcomed us to hers.

What we're starting to notice

Four weeks in, we're paying more attention to what happens after the first connection.

Meeting someone matters. So does seeing them again.

The Green Bay travelers spent enough time together for strangers to become familiar. A flying club gives members a place to return around a love they share. The Topeka Trail Runners meet often enough for a quiet young man to find his place. The Lyceum greets the same people until knowing their names becomes part of the rhythm. Brownville gives newcomers roles that make them part of things. Hermann's traditions carry on because families keep practicing them. The Kaufman Fund builds partnerships because serving a community takes many hands.

This week kept bringing us back to continuity. Connection needs opportunities, and belonging takes time. It grows through repeated meals, walks, conversations, rehearsals, meetings and invitations. It grows when someone returns enough times to stop feeling like a visitor.

We're also learning how many shapes loneliness can take. Someone in a crowded city may feel invisible. A person with decades of civic life behind her can wake up lonely after losing old friends. Someone may want community and lack the gas money to drive into town. Someone else may make it all the way through the door of a group and leave because nobody said hello.

What matters most seems to be whether there are relationships and places where someone can be known, take part and matter.

Week four began with a bus full of people who had been strangers days earlier. It ended at a chili cook-off we never planned to attend. In between were trails, tables, clubs, villages, traditions and people making room for one another again and again.

Communities are made by people who keep showing up for each other.

Next, we continue through Missouri toward St. Louis and then turn southeast toward Tennessee. We'll keep walking, and we'll keep listening.

If there's someone we should meet along the way, or a place in your community where people already come together, tell us.

And on Nov. 12, join us for the first National Day of Connection. At noon, take 12 minutes with someone you want to know better.