Hilary Swank Kicks Off Round the World Run 6/4/07

Kind hearted actress Hilary Swank has kicked off a round-the-world run for charity.

The Million Dollar Baby spoke at the ceremony on Friday (01Jun07) to raise awareness of the 1.1 billion people across the world who lack access to clean drinking water.

Twenty runners for the Blue Planet Run will make the 15,250 mile (24,542 kilometer) journey over 95 days. Each runner will run 10 miles (17 kilometers) at a time.

Swank, who was speaking at the U.N. lawn at Boston, Massachusetts just before the first runner set off, said, "Making safe drinking water available is everyone's problem, and it's a problem it will take everyone to solve.

"It's easy for me to show up today and talk about this. The real heroes are the 20 people who are actually running ... and putting their lives on hold for the 95 days."

The runners will cross 16 countries including, U.S., Ireland, England, France, and Japan.