When 17-year-old Eliseo Jimenez told his grandmother he was going to walk from Texas to Washington, D.C., in her honour, she was absolutely not having it.

“I told him, ‘No. Are you crazy?'” Adriana Martinez, 61, told As It Happens guest host Catherine Cullen. “I got very upset. Very, very upset. I told him, ‘No, I’m not going to give you my blessing.'”

But if there’s one thing Martinez knows about her grandson: it’s that once he sets his mind to something, there’s no stopping him. So, eventually, she conceded.

“What choice did I have? I had to give him my blessing. I had to pray for him,” she said. 

Now Jimenez is 34 days and 2,282 kilometres into his 2,650-kilometre journey from his hometown of Lubbock, Texas, to the U.S. capital to advocate for social security reform.

Along the way, he’s been raising money for the New Life Foundation of Texas, a non-profit he started to help seniors and people with disabilities. 

But his main goal is to score a meeting with his congressman, Republican Jodey Arrington, to discuss how to make life easier for elderly people, like his grandmother, who struggle to make ends meet. 

“I really want to meet him and talk about what I’m trying to do, just make a difference,” Jimenez said. “This is a very hard thing to do, and it’s obviously in people’s attention. And I think by doing this, I can get certain bills passed.”

Arrington’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment from CBC.

Blistered feet and bleeding thighs 

Jimenez left home on July 12 and, as of Friday, had made it to Roanoke, Va.

“I have blisters all over my feet. And between my thighs, I’m bleeding,” he said. “I would say it’s harder mentally, honestly, because it gets lonely out here.”

Sleeping has also been a struggle. He says he has money for hotels, but they won’t let him check in because he’s under 18. 

He’s been relying a lot on the kindness of strangers to put him up along the way, but says he’s slept on the streets a few times.

“Last night I slept in a Planet Fitness,” he said.

Martinez says she hasn’t been getting a lot of sleep either. She and Jimenez’s mother worry about him non-stop.

“He’s young and it’s far. And, you know, just the elements and, you know, wild animals,” she said. “This is a crazy world.”

But at the same time, she says she’s immensely proud. 

Her grandson, she says, has seen first-hand how she has struggled financially, just like her parents before her. She had to leave her work as a teacher to care for her parents, who could not afford to move into a nursing home. Martinez is now self-employed. 

“Most times kids his age don’t even want to listen to us … but not Jimenez,” she said. “It makes me feel honoured.”

And she has no doubts that he can achieve his goals. 

“Anything he sets his mind to doing, he does,” she said. “And he does it with grace.”

Stalled bill 

Right now, Jimenez has his mind set on convincing his elected representatives in Congress to pass bill HR 82, the Social Security Fairness Act.

The bill would eliminate Social Security penalties for retired public servants — including teachers, police officers, state workers, firefighters and their spouses or widows — as well as some people with disabilities, thereby expanding benefits for roughly two million Americans. 

“We’re penalizing people who go into public service,” the bill’s sponsor, Louisiana Republican Rep. Garret Graves, told the Shreveport Times earlier this month.

HR 82 has more than 300 co-sponsors and bipartisan support, but has been stalled at the committee level since January 2023.

Martinez and her husband plan to file for Social Security in January and fear they will face penalties because of her history as a teacher, and because her husband receives a pension payment from a previous marriage

“There’s so many that have been in office that have talked about … creating change, but nothing happens,” she said. 

In the meantime, Jimenez is just taking it all in.

Walking through Virginia, he says he’s blown away by the scenery. Before this trip, he’d never left Texas.

“There’s hills everywhere and creeks and it’s, like, real beautiful. I’ve never seen nothing like this,” he said. “Where I’m from, it’s just flat, dry and hot.”

He says he’s considered throwing in the towel a few times over the last month. But he’s made it this far, and it’s just another 378 kilometres to his destination.

“I’m not going to give up,” he said.