Exciting!

So Trenton Times wrote an article about me and bike and build! Here's the article, but one correction is, if you want to donate to Bike-and-Build through me, please do it by going to my rider profile and clicking 'donate' on the left. Or you can send a check to Bike-and-Build, but PLEASE remember to write my name in the memo field, otherwise it doesn't get credited to me. Thanks so much. Here's the article:

COPYRIGHT (c) The Times of Trenton 2010

Date: 2010/03/07 Sunday Page: A03 Section: News Edition: Trenton Full
Run Size: 603 words


This student heard the call and answered, 'Road trip!

She'll bike cross-country to raise affordable-housing funds
By Matt Fair
STAFF WRITER - PRINCETON TOWNSHIP


The cross-country road trip is a time-honored college tradition, one
that harkens back to the days of Sal Paradise, the hero of Jack
Kerouac's post-war anthem "On the Road," or to John Steinbeck's "Travels
with Charley."

But in a new manifestation of this perennial rite of passage, Princeton
Township's Maddy Sturm is preparing to travel from Providence to Seattle
this summer, a trip of nearly 4,000 miles, exclusively by bike.

Sturm, 18, a freshman at Dartmouth University and a graduate of
Princeton High School's Class of 2009, will be traveling with about 30
other college-age riders as part of a trip organized by Bike and Build,
a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization dedicated to raising money
for affordable housing.


"It sounded like it was a really amazing program and a really great
thing to get involved in," said Sturm. She found out about the program
through some fellow Dartmouth students who had gone on trips with the
organization last summer.

"It's not the same thing as saying, "Do you want to bike across the
country for fun,'" she said. "It's "Do you want to make a real social
change,' too."

But before Sturm can start pedaling west, the organization asks that she
-- and all its other riders, for that matter -- raise at least $4,000
for affordable housing projects across the country.

According to the Bike and Build's website, in the seven years the
organization has been putting trips together, it has raised more than
$2.3 million for affordable housing organizations across the country.

As they make their way from coast to coast this summer, they will stop
at eight construction sites to build homes along with affordable-housing
organizations such as Habitat for Humanity.

Sturm said that her experience working in a Princeton restaurant last
summer opened her eyes to the need for quality, affordable housing.

"I'd never really worked a job other than babysitting before," she said.
"For most of (my co-workers), this was their main job, and even though
we live in this really affluent Princeton area, they couldn't afford
housing close to work."

In addition to working on various construction sites along their route,
the group, which is scheduled to bike 38 to 116 miles per day, will also
make presentations on affordable housing in the towns and cities they
stop in each night.

"You stop in a town and you're staying at a local YMCA or church and
they hold a local fundraiser and event where you make these
presentations," Sturm added.

This summer, Bike and Build will be sending eight groups, a total of
about 250 riders, on eight different routes from the Atlantic to the
Pacific. Each group is directed by a team of three route leaders who
escort the riders in a van in case of emergency.

Sturm, who played hockey in high school and described herself as an avid
runner who has joined the Dartmouth rugby team since going to college,
said she wasn't too worried about the physical strain of biking almost
4,000 miles.

"I'm not very nervous about the biking itself. I'm very excited about
that," she said. "In terms of being somewhere totally different, it's
pretty adventurous to just be out there traveling with 30 bikes ... 30
college-age kids without a lot of adult supervision."

Sturm is scheduled to push off for Seattle on June 11 with a estimated
arrival date of Aug. 21.

To donate to Sturm's Bike and Build effort, or for more information on
the organization, visit bikeandbuild.org.

Contact Matt Fair at mfair@njtimes.com or at (609) 989-5707.