The Extra Mile: Points of Light Volunteer Walkway is a monument dedicated to America’s belief in the power of individuals to make a difference in the world. The monument is just blocks from the White House and begins at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 15th Street and continues north on 15th Street to G street, NW. Formed by a series of bronze medallions creating the one-mile historic walking path the monument honors individuals whose actions and commitment to service have transformed our nation. Thirty-three medallions have been installed since the walkway was dedicated by former president George HW Bush in 2005. It is an initiative of the Points of Light Foundation.
Here’s a complete list:
- Jane Addams – Founder, Hull House
- Edgar Allen – Founder, Easter Seals
- Ethel Percy Andrus – Founder, AARP
- Susan B. Anthony – Suffragist
- Roger Nash Baldwin – Founder, American Civil Liberties Union
- Ruth Standish Baldwin / Dr. George Haynes – Founders, National Urban League
- Ida Wells-Barnett – Leader of the anti-Lynching movement
- Clara Barton – Founder, American Red Cross
- Clifford Beers – Founder of the modern mental healthcare movement
- Ballington & Maud Booth – Founders, Volunteers of America
- William D. Boyce – Founder, Boy Scouts of America
- Wallace Campbell – Founder, CARE
- Rachel Carson – Environmentalist
- Cesar Chavez – Co-founder, United Farm Workers of America
- Ernest Kent Coulter – Founder, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America
- Dorothea Dix – Advocate of the Reform of Institutions for the Mentally Ill
- Frederick Douglass – abolitionist
- Millard & Linda Fuller – Founder and Co-founder, Habitat for Humanity
- Hector Garcia – Founder, American G.I. Forum
- Samuel Gompers – Founder, American Federation of Labor
- Charlotte & Luther Gulick – Founder, Camp Fire
- William Edwin Hall – President, Boys and Girls Clubs of America
- Paul Harris – Founder, Rotary International
- Dorothy Height – Civil Rights Leader
- Edgar J. Helms – Founder, Goodwill Industries
- Melvin Jones – Founder, International Association of Lions Clubs
- Helen Keller – Founder, American Foundation for the Blind
- Martin Luther King, Jr – Civil Rights Leader
- Juliette Gordon Low – Founder, Girl Scouts of the USA
- John Muir – Conservationist
- Mary White Ovington / W. E. B. Du Bois – Founders, NAACP
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver – Founder, Special Olympics
- Robert Smith/William Wilson – Co-founders, Alcoholics Anonymous
- Harriet Tubman – Leader of Underground Railroad Effort to Free Slaves
- Booker T. Washington – Civil Rights Leader
And here’s what one looks like on the sidewalk: