From: Honolulu Star Advertiser
By Mindy Pennybacker
Mary Latham comes from the hamlet of Orient Point, Long Island, N.Y., a tiny, close-knit community where there were 12 students in her elementary school class and she drove herself to their sixth-grade graduation on the family lawnmower.
So she could understand why, even after she turned 29 and was living in Manhattan, her dad got stressed when she announced her intention to drive alone through every state in the contiguous U.S. in Old Blue, her late mother’s 2008 Subaru Outback, staying with strangers and relying solely on voluntary contributions to pay for food and gas.
But James Latham couldn’t argue with the goal of his daughter’s trip — to honor her mother Patricia Latham’s belief that, while there would inevitably be tragedies in life, “there would always be more good out there if we looked for it,” Latham said at a Honolulu press conference on Wednesday.
In a recent act of kindness, auto dealer Servco contacted Latham before she flew to Hawaii and offered to lend her a Subaru to drive on each island. She accepted.