When Robb Pollard stood at the Playa del Rey breakwater before sunrise on April 27, the Pacific Ocean behind him and 2,500 miles of road ahead, he wasn’t thinking about publicity or raising money.
He was thinking about survival.
The Playa del Rey resident had just taken the first step of what would become a 56-day journey across America, ending at Jacksonville Beach, Florida, where he reached the Atlantic Ocean on Father’s Day, reuniting with his wife and two young children.
For Robb, the walk, called Walk With Me, Brother, was about confronting the silence surrounding male suicide and mental health.
“This was never about cameras or clicks,” Robb says. “It was about letting men know they’re not alone.”
Robb, who lives near 83rd Street in Playa del Rey and owns a custom men’s suit business in the neighborhood, chose to begin his journey close to home for a reason.
At first, he considered launching from the Santa Monica Pier, but the decision didn’t feel right.
“I thought, why am I starting there?” he says. “Why not start where I actually live?”
Playa del Rey has become Robb’s home since moving there in 2015. Originally from northwest England near Manchester, he first came to Los Angeles in 2010 on vacation, fell in love with the city, and later met his wife.
Now, with a slower-paced beachside life, local coffee spots, familiar faces, and his business nearby, Playa feels like a place of community and the perfect starting point for a mission rooted in connection.
But the road ahead was anything but easy.
What many people didn’t know when Robb took that first step was that the journey had begun long before the breakwater.
It started in a bathroom.
Robb has battled depression, bipolar disorder, addiction, and suicidal thoughts for much of his life. He says he attempted to take his own life twice. For years, he masked his pain with alcohol.
“Nobody ever told me I drank too much,” he says. “I was very good at hiding it.”
Even after becoming a husband and father, the drinking continued. But on New Year’s Eve 2024, something changed.
His infant daughter became violently ill late that night, and Robb realized he’d been drinking whiskey. If he needed to drive her to the hospital, he couldn’t.
“That hit me hard,” he says. “I knew right then it would be my last drink.”
He poured everything out the next day and committed to sobriety. But getting sober, he says, forced him to confront everything he had been numbing. Without alcohol, his depression deepened.
By spring 2025, he says he had reached a breaking point.
“I didn’t want to wake up feeling like that anymore,” he says.
His wife had become increasingly concerned. A year earlier, she had found him walking through their home, looking for places to end it all.
Robb says he had seen therapists before, but admits he wasn’t honest with them.
“I lied every time,” he says.
Then came what he describes as a moment of surrender. Alone in his bathroom, he dropped to his knees and prayed.
“I made a deal with God. I said, ‘If you help me, I’ll help somebody else.’”
That promise would ultimately become Walk With Me, Brother.
Part of Robb’s healing came through ketamine infusion therapy, which he began in Marina del Rey after researching treatment options. While he acknowledges it may not work for everyone, he credits it with helping save his life.
By his fifth session, he says the noise in his mind around addiction cravings, trauma, depression, and crippling anxiety had begun to quiet.
“For the first time, I felt lighter,” he says.
And during one of those treatments, Robb says he had a vivid vision of himself running across America.
At first, it felt strange and unrelated to his healing. Later, it became a plan. By August 2025, he had formed his own nonprofit and began preparing for a cross-country mission.
Originally, Robb intended to raise money for larger mental health organizations, but after researching how little of each dollar sometimes goes directly to services, he decided to create his own 501(c)(3).
The journey itself cost about $44,000, with Robb personally covering $24,000. But for him, the return wasn’t financial.
“My goal was to help one person,” he says.
Along the route, traveling through Texas, Louisiana, and the Southeast, often living out of a 24-foot camper van, Robb found himself doing exactly that.
Sometimes in planned community meetups. Sometimes in unexpected places. He made a meaningful connection in a laundromat in an RV park.
He says men opened up to him in ways they never had before. Some were veterans, delivery drivers, or construction workers.
“One big guy in a laundromat told me his brother died by suicide in 2008, and he’d never talked about it,” Robb says. “We ended up hugging in the middle of that laundromat.”
The most powerful encounters came in Sugar Land, Texas, where Robb met two 17-year-olds through a nonprofit. One was newly sober. The other, a refugee named AK, had previously attempted to take his own life.
Robb spent an hour walking and talking with them. It changed him.
“That was the first time in my life I felt high without alcohol or drugs,” he says. “That’s when I realized my ‘why.’”
The timing was crucial.
Just days earlier, Robb says he had nearly quit.
His father-in-law was in intensive care. His sister-in-law had been diagnosed with breast cancer. His wife was home alone with their two children.
He called her and said he couldn’t keep going.
“She told me, ‘No. Finish it,’” he says.
Meeting those teenagers gave him the strength to continue. They were what the walk was all about.
Robb ultimately finished the walk earlier than expected, arriving in Jacksonville Beach on Father’s Day, which also happened to be his wedding anniversary.
His wife and children flew out to meet him.
Standing at the Atlantic Ocean, holding his son and daughter in his arms, the moment felt like something much more than the end of a journey. It felt like the beginning of a new chapter.
Now back home in Playa del Rey, Robb says the real work is just beginning.
He plans to launch “Walk With Me, Brother,” chapters starting in Los Angeles, with twice-weekly morning walks, and runs open to anyone.
The idea is simple: create spaces where men can move, connect, and talk without judgment.
“Not everyone wants therapy. Maybe they just want to walk for an hour and be around people,” he says.
He hopes those gatherings will expand into other cities, creating community-based support systems rooted in movement, conversation, and accountability.
For Robb, the mission has become bigger than him. But it’s also deeply personal. He often thinks about his two children, his son, 5, and daughter, 2, and what they will someday understand about their father.
“They won’t remember this right now,” he says. “But one day, when they hear the words mental health, I want them to know asking for help is okay.”
More than anything, Robb says this journey allowed him to rewrite his story. Not as the man who almost lost his life. But as the man who chose to fight for it and for others.
“I got to rewrite my future,” he says. “And hopefully, help someone else do the same.”
Visit walkwithmebrother.com to learn more about Robb’s mission.
If you or anyone you know is struggling, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988.
By Shanee Edwards