Bicyclists travel across America to help needy

A group of college-aged men and women will be traveling through Havre today on their bicycles on their way to help communities in need.

Bike and Build is a program that rounds up people to travel as a group on routes around America. They work with grants and travel to communities they have approved as a recipient of their grant money to do things like build shelter homes, clinics and such.

The 24 riders stayed in Chinook Sunday night and were set to ride through Havre today. Saturday night, they called St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Malta their home.

Sam Bondurant is one of the group leaders who direct the other cyclists.

“We have affordable housing affiliates that we’ve worked with,” Bondurant said. “Some we’ve worked with are from areas that we’ve passed through on our route.”

Bondurant said the communities all applied for grant money. The group has a pool of $40,000 to give out to the community projects. Three or four of the recipients will receive sums of around $2,000 to $10,000.

Saturday night, the group gathered in a common room at the Malta church to read the applications and discuss which projects they wanted to help.

Bondurant said Bike and Build focuses on empowering youth. Everyone riding west was 18 to 25. Many of the applications they lean toward also benefit youth, he said.

“I think we really appreciate when people are kind of focusing and tailoring their work toward youth,” Bondurant said.

The group will drive to a project and spend generally a day working to help build. They stop about 12 times through their trip to build or repair. They’ve helped with community gardens, housing-first initiatives and habitat organizations.

They started riding west June 14 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and they plan on ending their trip Aug. 26 in Vancouver.

They average about 70 miles a day. Some days, they’ve done 140 and some days 40.

Many of the young adults were in college or just graduated.