Hands Across Washington

Hands Across Washington was a city-wide fundraiser with the inaugural Good Neighbor Days celebration in 1986.  A few months earlier, there was a nationwide “Hands Across America” campaign to raise money as part of the USA For Africa fund.  Funds from Washington’s event were set to be split between WHIP and the Washington Senior Citizens Center.  Residents Em Bachman and Andy Felix oversaw Hands Across Washington, which was to begin at both Washington Square and Sunnyland Plaza and meet in the middle at Cherry Tree Shopping Center, a distance of around five miles. The event was set for Saturday, August 30, 1986, and $3 was charged for a participation button.

The first person in line that Saturday morning was Frances Whittaker, a retired music teacher at Washington High School.  Also on hand were the Class of ’56 reunion attendees.  Sadly, not many more showed up.  They did sell plenty of buttons, as around $4,000 was raised for the two causes, but there were not nearly 1,000 people along the five-mile stretch.  The line from the square barely got past Ben Franklin, and it wasn’t any better at Sunnyland Plaza.

It would have taken almost 7,000 people to pull this off, a wildly unrealistic aspiration on the Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend. The intentions were wonderful, however, and around $4,000 was split between two great causes.