How many pairs of sneakers does it take to walk the perimeter of the continental U.S.? Eight so far, about 10,400 miles and two years into it, but Leroy Bailey of Virginia Beach, Virginia, anticipates getting pair number nine when he reaches Portland.

The 54-year-old building and remodeling contractor said he has about 900 miles to go in a trek he started June 30, 2014 to raise awareness about homeless veterans and to try to raise money to build shelters, or “hope centers for the homeless.”

“I started walking south. I went down around Florida, around Texas, to San Diego, up to Seattle, over to Green Bay, down around Lake Michigan, around Lake Erie, up the St. Lawrence Seaway, to Rouses Point, New York (and) all the way to Bangor, Maine and now I’m heading south back to Virginia Beach. I’m almost done,” he said in the Bath Road, Wiscasset home of Mike Maney Tuesday night.

Maney said he had seen a news report about Bailey’s walk and recognized the backpack with the flags sticking out, when he spotted it, and Bailey, walking by.

“I’m hard to miss,” Bailey said, laughing.

Maney said he offered him a place to stay but Bailey had already booked a hotel room. Tuesday night, Maney and his family had him in for a steak dinner.

Maney explained that he liked the reasons Bailey is walking, but he especially liked the fact Bailey is doing it. “He’s doing what he said he was going to do.”

Bailey said he has raised about $8,000 but he said God told him to take the journey and he’s seeing it through. The western New York native said his long-distance walk has gotten a lot of attention on social media and some coverage in print and on television, including a recent interview with a Bangor station. He feels some people he’s met along the way weren’t interested in hearing his story due to his appearance: He chose to grow his hair long and grow a beard, to see if people would judge him for it.

Some have, he said, like those who asked where he was going to have supper and then offered him none, or one church he said offered him a place to rest outside, behind the building, with temperatures in the 20s.

Bailey said he is not a veteran but that his siblings were in the service and his father served in Korea. He said he was 3 when his father died of tuberculosis.

His wife understands about his need to do the walk, he said; he came home at one point when she had a medical issue.

He’s had his own, from a sprained ankle in Louisiana to pneumonia he said sidelined him for two days in Bangor. He hopes to get home sometime in October.

Learn more about Bailey’s journey and his cause at servantsofgodministries.com or on Facebook, or email him at servantsofgodministries1@gmail.com. The website states the ministry is seeking, but does not yet have, nonprofit status.