Cyclists pedal anti-poverty message in Chicago

By Michelle Martin
Staff writer

Escorted by a phalanx of Cook County Sheriff’s Police squad cars, more than two dozen bicyclists wheeled their way from South Michigan Avenue into the parking lot at Old St. Mary’s Church.

In orange, white and gray cycling jerseys, the 20 riders on the cross-country bike trek welcomed the chance to dismount, grab ice-cold bottles of water and cartons of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and share the story of poverty in America.

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development’s “Brake the Cycle of Poverty” bicycle tour left California June 1 with the goal of spreading awareness of poverty and CCHD’s efforts to help. The riders plan to arrive in Washington D.C. Aug. 1 after 3,838 miles on the road.

In Chicago, the riders were welcomed with a Mass and ice cream social July 13 at Old St. Mary’s. Then they had a rare day off, to sleep late, make phone calls, do laundry and attend to other personal business. Monday evening, they attended an educational program about CCHD at the Resurrection Project, one of 23 archdiocesan organizations to receive local, national or economic development grants from CCHD, the U.S. Catholic bishops’ domestic anti-poverty effort. Auxiliary Bishop John Manz blessed the bikes and the riders there.

For Maria Flores, a 25-year-old rider from Silver Spring, Md., the story of poverty in the United States will always be linked to ice cream.

It was at a Sonic ice cream shop somewhere in America’s vast, hot plains where the riders had stopped for refreshment, when a family in a car pulled up and asked who they were. When they explained, Flores said, the man said, “I am the face of poverty.”

He had been out of work for about three years, and he and his wife and son would have been homeless but for the generosity of relatives, the man told him. As he explained their financial struggles, the little boy asked him when he could have his operation—something for ears, Flores believes. His father told him not until they had the money to pay for it.

“I didn’t think that happened in America,” said Flores, who came to Maryland from El Salvador with her family when she was 13.

Flores took an unpaid two-month leave from her office-manager job to make the tour. She had hoped to do a cross-country bicycle ride at some point in her life—“I thought I would do it later, when I had the time and the money,” she said—but when she heard about the Brake the Cycle tour, she decided to take the opportunity this summer.

Flores heard about in part because she already knew Mary Wright, CCHD education coordinator and Brake the Cycle of Poverty Bike Tour organizer.

Wright, a veteran of bicycle tours, came up with the idea to spread the word about poverty both through the media and one-on-one contacts with people and the parishes that have provided hospitality.

“We usually fly in and do an hour program and leave,” said Wright, who has enjoyed the opportunity to spend more time with parishioners across the United States. “People also come up to when we’re stopped at stop signs in little towns and ask what we’re doing, and we hand them these little cards.”

The laminated cad she pulls out lists U.S. Census statistics on poverty: more than 33 million people, who, if they all lived in one state would be the nation’s second largest. That works out to one out of eight people, and one out of every six children in the United States.

CCHD, the U.S. bishops’ campaign to fight domestic poverty, helps by funding projects led by poor people aimed changing the conditions that create poverty in the first place. It is funded mostly by a November second collection in dioceses around the country. The Archdiocese of Chicago usually contributes more than any other. In 2001, Catholics from the archdiocese contributed $835,495 to the campaign, and programs within the archdiocese received $503,500 in grants last year.

For the riders, spreading the word isn’t easy. The riders generally rise between 4:30 and 5 a.m., hit the road by 6 a.m. to take advantage of the cool air of the morning, ride anywhere from 50 or 60 to over 100 miles and reach their destination in the afternoon. Then they shower, eat and nap, make an educational presentation about poverty in the evening, and roll out the sleeping bags and turn out the lights in the parish hall by 9 p.m., Wright said.

For Lyle Langlois, 73, and Kay Martin, 66, or Phoenix, the days are even longer. Langlois is the oldest rider on the tour, but he’s making his third transcontinental ride. Martin, his wife of four months, never rode this far, but has competed in triathlons.

“We’re a little slower,” Langlois said. “So we leave about an hour ahead.”

Some of their toughest days were in the mountains, Martin said. The couple walked their bikes four miles downhill from Monarch Pass (elevation 11,312 feet) because it was so cold and the road so steep, they feared their fingers would get frostbitten in the wind if they kept riding.

Earlier, in the mountains in California, riders pushed their bikes through 3? miles of snow, and then endured 110-degree heat in the deserts of Nevada and Utah.

“At one point, we had to bring in a second support vehicle, just to make sure we had enough water for the riders, because there’s nothing out there,” Wright said.

When they left Chicago, the riders were to proceed through Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and then what Mary Wright expects to big the next big physical challenge: the mountains of Pennsylvania.

 

For more information, visit www.brakethecycle.org.

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