Getting your daily dose of bikercize is good for the body. But when you trek thousands of miles on your bike to raise money for a worthy cause, it's great for the soul!

• Interested in riding in the Summer 2003 Habitat Bike Challenge? Get the info here. • Check out Habitat's Summer Youth Blitz program for teens. • Click on Go-Girl.com to read more about helping others.

Biking For a Better Way of Living
By Robyn Tellefsen
August/September 2002

The CollegeBound Network NewsClick -- "Habitat for Humanity. Poverty housing. Raising money. Thirty-one college students. Churches hosting. Seventy miles a day... [These] are words I've said many times," explains Jessica Cohen, a senior at Yale University, New Haven, CT.

Each time she says them, though, she remembers how amazing her Habitat for Humanity involvement is.

Jessica, along with peers from Yale and other colleges, are spending the summer riding the 63-day, 4,000-mile Habitat Bike Challenge. Their goal? To raise $150,000 to help the non-profit organization, which is dedicated to eliminating poverty housing and developing communities for people in need. Riders set out from New Haven, CT, and two groups of over 30 students each will finish in Seattle, WA, and San Francisco, CA, respectively.

Students start at the crack of dawn, and bike over 60 miles a day, breaking for lunch and conversation with people they meet along the way. When they aren't cycling across the country, they're working on Habitat homes. Mary Dishman, a sophomore at the University of Colorado at Boulder, was touched when she met a potential Habitat homeowner and her son.

"[It] was really inspiring because it showed us that we are actually making a difference in people's lives, and that there is a real cause and reason behind all the pain and miles of cycling," Mary says. The pain she speaks of comes from the broken bikes, bruised backsides, exhaustion, roadkill, and directional difficulties.

For Yale junior and leader on the trip, Rachel Serlen, the biking excursion helps her and fellow students keep their eyes on the prize. "We know that as we pedal, we're raising money that will [help] build at least one house in one neighborhood for one family," she says. And for Yale senior, Aaron Lemon-Strauss, biking is a reminder that it's more than just students sacrificing for this worthwhile cause.

"It amazes me that in every town we stop, there is a church or community center willing to house and feed 31 college students," Aaron shares. That makes all of us feel really lucky to be representing such a great organization. We'll keep on pedaling."