Food and Housing

A group of 26 people riding their bikes across the country needs a lot of food and a lot of places to spend the night. After each ride day we end up at a new host for the night. These hosts are often churches that are generous enough to let us use their building for the night. We almost always sleep on the floor with sleeping mats and sleeping bags. Our leaders spent huge amounts of time before the trip finding and coordinating with these hosts so that we have reliable places to sleep every night. In places where no churches can accommodate we try to find other options. About a week ago we spent the night in the theater of a summer camp that had not yet started for the summer. Later in the summer we will be camping when we stay in National Parks. Similarly we do our best to find places to shower when we get into town. Often a YMCA or a local high school or college rec center is able to open up their shower to us. When these locations are unavailable we get our our swimsuits and take hose showers in the parking lot of our host for the night.

A very generous congregation a few days ago gave us our first opportunity in a long time to sleep in real beds. 13 families from the congregation agreed to let 2 riders each come and sleep in their homes for the night. It was a great opportunity for us to spend an evening with a community member and get to know them as well as have a warm shower and bed for the night.

Our hosts are often generous enough to provide us with dinner each night and sometimes breakfast in the morning. We then try to take any leftovers with us in our coolers and eat them for lunches over the next few days. When hosts don’t provide meals we call local restaurants and grocery stores and try to get donations. We try to get as much food donated as possible so that more of the money we have already raised can go to grants for affordable housing organizations. If we can’t get food donated we buy food for ourselves, usually lots of fruit and peanut butter.