'I want to ride my bicycle'

Sophomore cycles cross country

By Kaleigh Maher, news editor
Posted on September 4, 2007

Over a five-year period, approximately 5 to 8 million people in the United States will experience at least one night of homelessness, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This summer sophomore Anne Dreyfuss experienced 70 while riding her bike cross country to raise money for affordable housing causes.

“I got to experience not having a home for two months, living with everything I had in one little bag,” she said. “There are people in the country who have to do that every single day, and it’s a hard lifestyle.”

Dreyfuss was one of 30 participants ages 18-25 year olds to bike cross-country from Providence, Rhode Island to Seattle, Washington with Bike and Build, an independent nonprofit organization.

“We were like one big dysfunctional family by the end of the trip,” she said.

Bike and Build is dedicated to educating others about affordable housing while raising money. The organization began with two cross-country trips in the summer of 2003 and has added a trip each year. This summer there were six trips crossing the U.S. with more than 180 participants who raised over $360,000 for affordable housing projects. Groups cycle for six days of the week and volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, or a similar organization, for one day.

Participants usually sign up for the trips about a year in advance so they can fundraise the thousands of dollars required to participate and train for the long days of cycling, said Dreyfuss. She, however, found out about the trip at the end of April and knew it was something she wanted to be a part of.

“I was pretty uniformed about poverty housing and poverty in the U.S. in general, so I wanted to learn more about that and have more experience with it,” Dreyfuss said.

The first few days of the trip were hard on Dreyfuss, but she said her body got used to it.

“The most biking I’d done beforehand was biking to class, so it was kind of a shock,” she said.

Before the trip Dreyfus said the biggest fear she had was of tornados.

“I was just afraid I’d be on my bike and get swooped up by some big twister and not be able to do anything about it,” she said.

Dreyfuss’s parents were very encouraging, even though she said her mom was a little nervous about the trip.

“My dad wants to do it, she said. “He’s 60, and he’s training to do it.”

Part of the service trip’s appeal for Dreyfuss was the opportunity to experience the U.S. She said that while she’s toured other countries and had an understanding of other cultures, she didn’t really feel as though she had seen enough of her own country.

“I’ve never had a U.S. identity,” she said. “I think this helped me to form that.”

Riding approximately 4,000 miles in 70 days was tough, but Dreyfuss said she learned to have a more positive outlook on life through this trip.

“I think that I grew up a lot on the trip,” she said. “I really pushed myself to my absolute. I found out where my limits were. I learned a lot about myself and other people and how the world works.”

Through bad days, hot weather, storms, getting lost and lots of flat tires, when bikers reached their destination at the end of the day everything was alright.

“I think the biggest lesson I learned was that no matter how many bad things happened in the day, if at the end of the day you were still alive and healthy and in one piece that everything was good,” she said.

To date, more than 400 individuals have taken part in Bike and Build and raised over $750,000.