We can almost taste it -

- the Providence air, that is.

This is (almost) the day we've all been waiting for. Annamaria and I only have SEVEN DAYS LEFT to lounge around and sleep in until we arrive in Providence for our Bike&Build orientation! We are both well on our way to being ready for the journey (actually I considered myself ready last November, but apparently I had other things to do). Here's my checklist:

FUNDRAISE $4,500 for affordable housing.                                         $4,300/$4,500
RIDE 500 miles.                                                                                      ~430/500
BUILD for 10 hours at an affordable housing site.                                 12/10
RESEARCH affordable housing and CREATE a presentation.             COMPLETE

I don't know Annamaria's exact info - but we know that we both will bike away from Providence on June 9 for an awesome summer.

These affordable housing presentations seemed annoying at first, mostly because it was work I had to do after graduating college - and who wants to do that? But it really wasn't bad. The homeowner I interviewed from Las Cruces, NM told me all about her experiences before and after working with Habitat for Humanity. I was shocked. It's the kind of thing you read about but always assume doesn't regularly happen - "This would never happen where I'M from, people don't live like that EVERYWHERE." Yes, they do.

Let me give you just a taste of what life was like in her previous apartment:
- Mold. Everywhere.
- Holes under the sinks and in the walls. (Landlord never fixed it.)
- Neighborhood: unsafe and drug-filled. She was uncomfortable leaving her children alone at any time of day.
- Kids sick all the time. Asthma and coughing for months on end.
- The mother herself diagnosed with depression and bipolar.
- None of the family would have company over.

Now what life is like in her Habitat for Humanity home:
- Clean conditions.
- Safe neighborhood - she has started going to school during the day and working nights and weekends, leaving her kids at home alone.
- Family has normal allergies, etc. but no lasting illness.
- Mother's depression and bipolar symptoms have vanished, self-confidence has gone up.
- The house is now a home for friends and family of kids and mother.

Amazing right? All I could do was congratulate her on getting out of her previous apartment and doing all the hard work that was required of her to move out. She told me she felt empowered after working for two years to get out, and that the two years she's lived in her new home have felt like a dream - "I still have to pinch myself sometimes."

So yea, affordable housing is important to the normal folk of America, and I'm pretty darn excited to start biking and building in ONE WEEK to help living conditions of people in other towns across the U.S.

In closing:

A short celebration of the fact that I have officially GRADUATED from Stony Brook University with my Bachelor's in Biomedical Engineering! And congratulations to all of my fellow graduates, from Stony Brook and elsewhere, because we are officially free (unless you're going to grad school).

I also want to send out a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has donated or supported Annamaria and myself in any way. We need to have a list of people to send post cards, photos, and knick-knacks to along the way, eh AM?

More later,
KAS

Best Day of Our Lives!

If you hadn't heard, yesterday we held a Doctor Who Raffle at one of our favorite bars The Way Station.  If you haven't been there, let me tell you, it's amazing.  The staff are so friendly and all the regulars are always down to chat and always down to donate.  When we began talking about the raffle we had 3 prizes but after telling The Way Station community we started the day with 12 ridiculously awesome prizes! Among my favorites were a Cyberman Shower Radio (Didn't know that existed? Me neither.) and a K-9 shirt:

                          

      Anyhow it was all going fantastic when they told us they were going to do a fourth screening and wanted to know if we were going to stay for this one as well.  At this point we had watched three screenings of the same episode and Kathryn could see my tired dying soul in my eyes so she decided that...yes, yes we would stay for another screening.  Swallowing my impulse to cry I prepared myself for another 2 hours of raffling and episode watching when out of nowhere Steven Moffat walked into the bar.  If you don't know who that is, he's one of the most famous writers of Doctor Who.  He also writes for the shows Sherlock and Coupling... in short, he's a pretty big deal.  Just when Kathy and I were about to flip out and my brother was on the brink of "who is this? I can't relate with your emotions right now", Matt Smith himself (The current actor who plays The Doctor) also walked into the bar.  It was amazing.  We were beside our selves in excitement.
     After they got seated and the whole bar prepared to watch the final screening of the night, the MC called Kathryn and me on stage to make a last call for the raffle.  So there we were standing on stage in front of one of our favorite actors and my only orders from Kathryn were "hand me the mic when your done, so that I can describe Bike & Build".  So what did I do?  In a frantic trance I introduced both of us, I announced the raffle, I described Bike & Build and gave the mic straight back to the MC.  When I realized what I did I thought Kathryn was going to punch me in the face... I don't think I would have minded either.  I stole her one chance to speak directly to Matt Smith himself in front of an audience.  I don't think she'll ever do a favor for me again.

"Hey Kathryn can I borrow a pen?'"

      

Despite setting my self up for what will now be a very awkward summer, it was a very successful night! In total we raised $375 for affordable housing and met the people of our dreams.  Job well done I'd say.

Again a big thanks to our donors!  And don't forget to be awesome!

-Annamaria

Long Windy and Rainy

Hi All,

Well, we've done it. Annamaria and I have proven that we are unafraid of the rain and the wind. We rode a total of 42 miles today in less than ideal conditions, our first 'long' ride. Hooray! It didn't actually end up raining even though it was supposed to, but we think the fact that we were not deterred by the idea of rain deserves some sort of medal. Anyway, we had fun on the ride until the very end about two miles out Annamaria noticed her back tire was very flat. Don't worry though, she got through it.

Biking on Long Island in post-rain muggy, windy, gloomy-ness is not ideal for the health of the bikes. It was like we brought them to the beach on a rainy day (which I guess we technically did) because there was sand in every crevice of the bike. So how do you get the sand out of your bike without using a garden hose? Our answer: take a shower with it! In hindsight, we should've taken a photo, but we didn't. So use your imagination to envision each of us using our dorm handicap-friendly showers to give our bikes a good rinse after putting them through so much. Don't worry, we dried them properly so they won't rust.

The next two weeks are finals weeks for us - but I don't have any finals! So instead I will be full time fundraising/house building/bike riding. This Wednesday we're gonna finish up our building time with the Nassau County Habitat for Humanity, so that will be an awesome exhausting day. Next Sunday is a big day for us as well, on May 19 we will be at the Way Station in Brooklyn running our Doctor Who raffle while the season 7 finale is played at the bar. Don't worry, Doctor Who will be back next year. If you're around Brooklyn that day - stop by, say hi, enter to win awesome prizes and support affordable housing!

Summary of this post: Don't worry.

More later,
KAS

Ho My Gosh It's May!

Time has been flying by and there's only one more month till we're off.  That means we have one more month to hit our goal of $4,500 each or we can't help build and spread the word this summer so please donate if you haven't already.  Also please help by spreading the word to your friends and family.

On another note, I recently got the chance to catch up with an alum of the Bike & Build program this week and was given a few tips:

Tip #1: Wear sunscreen!

     Despite wearing sunscreen just about every day apparently he still has a cycling tan almost a year later.  Sexy cycling tans here we come!

Tip #2: When using clip-less pedals you're going to fall but it'll be ok!

      Kathy has already had the pleasure of this experience, ripping up her knees a little bit, but I have not. And I fear that it is imminent and will happen when I least expect it...but I guess it will be ok..

                                          Me on the right falling..
                                          Kathy on the left saying "HA!"

Tip #3: Bike with different people in your group every day.

     At the start of our trip we will be complete strangers.  Together we will have raised ~$135,000 but our journey will have just begun.  It will be a tough trip full of stressful days; days when we will be building houses after long days of biking, and days when we will have to bike after building.  The better we know each other the more support we can give each other and the more we can support affordable housing.  I can't wait to become part of our team.

Till next time,

Annamaria