Miami students ride 4,000 miles to raise money for people with disabilities
Journey of Hope takes bike riders on cross-country routes to Washington, D.C.
Miami students ride 4,000 miles to raise money for people with disabilities
There are a lot of ways to learn to ride a bike well. You can start at a young age, riding around the neighborhood. Start a little later in life and ride the bike to and from school. Or take it up as a hobby or exercise as an adult.
Or, you can do what Farmer School of Business students Charlie Taft and Nick D’Angelo did this summer – volunteer to ride 4,000 miles across the United States to raise money for your fraternity’s national nonprofit organization that focuses on serving people with disabilities.
“I started on the Peloton in the winter, and then we got our bikes shipped to us in early March and started riding around Oxford all last semester,” said Taft, president of the Miami chapter of Pi Kappa Phi.
“We did lots of rides around the Hueston Woods area. Everyone's expected to do 1,000 miles of training on their own before they start the trip,” chapter philanthropy chair D’Angelo said.
Each year on the Journey of Hope, about 50 Pi Kappa Phi fraternity brothers, half starting in San Francisco, half in Seattle, ride to test their limits, spread awareness, and celebrate the abilities of all people along a pair of cross-country routes to Washington D.C., ending their trip on the U.S. Capitol lawn. This year, that trip was 63 days.
“I will say it started out really, really difficult. Our Day 4 was in Lake Tahoe, going up Kirkwood Mountain. I think it was 90 total miles, and about 70 of those miles were uphill climbing. So, it was around 12,000 feet of total climbing that day,” Taft said. “That was the day when I think we both said to each other, ‘There's no way we're actually doing this.’”
“But it also totally set up for the rest of the trip. If we could do that on Day 4, we could do anything,” he said.
“One of the hardest parts was biking through the desert in Nevada. We would all look back on that and laugh for the rest of the trip. We didn't see a stoplight for a week straight,” D’Angelo recalled.
Along the way, the riders stop in cities and towns to visit people with disabilities and the groups that work with them. “We hang out with them, we play games with them, we do adaptive sports with them. Just really try to brighten their days, eat dinner with them, talk to them, hear their stories,” Taft said.
“We were rolling into Grand Island, Nebraska, and the mayor was there to welcome us,” D’Angelo said. “They all treat us so well, and they're excited for us to come every year. So, it is special seeing the lives that you impact.”
As a team, the riders raised nearly $600,000 nationwide, with Taft and D’Angelo raising about $17,000 of that total between them.
“You learn about a lot about yourself. If you can do this, you can do a lot of things that are not as hard, and there are people who don't have the opportunity to do something like this,” D’Angelo said.
“I would do anything to have just one more day on that bike ride, even in the middle of Nevada. I would totally do it in a heartbeat. It’s literally one of the most incredible organizations and experiences that a college kid can do, and you're probably never going to get a chance to really do anything else like it,” Taft said. “You will never, ever say to anyone, ‘Damn I really regret riding my bike across the country for people with disabilities.’ You're never going to regret doing it, especially after you finish.”
