Raising money for affordable housing, 32 people saddled up on their steel or aluminum steeds and road right across the United States — from Jacksonville to San Francisco. The bikers are members of Bike and Build and they not only raised money, they also stopped along the way to pitch in on construction of said housing.
Emily Boydstun, 25, was one of those riders. An article by Yara Simon that appears on the Gainesville Sun website tells how Boydstun, immediately after earning her master’s degree in mental health counseling at the University of Florida, rode with the group for nearly 70 days on their cross-country journey, along the way raising $140,000 and putting in a week of construction time.
“I was pretty much interrogating her,” Boydstun told Simon, having heard about the program in 2006 from a friend. “It’s for such a great cause. It’s such a big issue.”
And as soon as she had her degree in hand, she was ready to ride.
Simon writes that it was an arduous effort. The riders woke at 4:30 in the morning and were on the road by 6:30. They biked all day most days, until they reached host locations — churches and school gymnasiums — that had been arranged beforehand, usually churches and school gyms.
In New Orleans, Bike and Builders stopped for a full five days to build homes. Each of the riders donated $500 to affordable housing groups of their choice. Simon writes that Boydstun donated her money to Rebuilding Together North Central Florida, which is in Gainesville, Fla., her hometown.
The bulk of the money the team raised goes to make grants of $20,000 to affordable housing groups.
“It’s a blur,” Boydstun told Simon of her trip. “But we got to meet a lot of local people. The impact that we had on others and others had on us” was, according to her, a highlight of the trip.
Photo courtesy of dustinj, via Flickr
