Cycling for wounded vets

St. Paul School junior Aaron Weiss, front, of Rockland, Maine, and sophomore Luke Norena of Glen Head, N.Y., ride their bicycles down 1st Street through Havre Tuesday morning to raise money for wounded veterans through the Ride 2 Recovery program.

Every two years, high school students at St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H., undertake a community service project.

This year, their project involves raising money and awareness for the Ride 2 Recovery project that helps wounded veterans.

The group hopes to collect $100,000 and just as important, to raise public awareness about the plight of wounded veterans.

Seven students from the school are bicycling across country, talking to people along the way about their project.

They were in Havre on Tuesday, less than a third of the way on their journey. They started in Seattle 14 days ago and hope to end up in York, Maine, by the end of the summer.

Along the way, they have stayed in churches, people's homes and in parks.

On Tuesday alone, they started at the Gildford Baptist Church and ended the day in Malta, where for once, they were planning to stay at a hotel.

Shortly after 11 a. m., they stopped off for a snack at Town Square in downtown Havre, where they chatted with passersby about their cause.

Between Havre and Malta, they hit the 1,000-mile mark of their journey.

They have already taken in $75,000.

They know the hardest part of their fund-raising effort is still ahead of them, but they say they are participating in the experience of a lifetime in biking across the country.

For more information about R2R or the St. Paul School group, go to www.ride2recovery.com or www.spscyclists2011.org.