While most students were relaxing at the beach or working in air-conditioned comfort this summer, sophomore Hannah Robinson was outside. Some days she shoveled gravel; on others, she laid foundation or nailed down roof panels.
On most days, though, she just rode her bike.
In two months and three days, through blazing summer heat, Robinson and 30 other riders biked 3,500 miles from Virginia Beach, Va. to Cannon Beach, Ore., stopping along the way in towns across America to help build houses with Habitat for Humanity and to raise awareness for the issue of affordable housing.
"It was a huge challenge, and it was by far the coolest thing I've ever done," Robinson said. "Sticking with it was probably the best decision I've made."
The trip, called "Bike and Build," took Robinson across the center of the United States and over the Rocky Mountains to the West Coast. According to her, it was all about helping out a good cause.
"Over the course of our build days, we worked on pretty much every step of making a house, which was pretty cool," Robinson said. "I realized as I went along that Habitat for Humanity doesn't just build houses for anyone - these are people who work hard, but have just hit bad luck. They have to have tried every option to get out of their substandard living situation, and most of the time they just want to find somewhere to raise their kids."
Robinson said the days spent building, which were spread throughout the trip, involved a wide variety of tasks. At one point, the group helped with a "blitz-build," during which 1,000 houses were built across the country in just five days.
"Building these houses takes people out of substandard living and puts them in standard living, but it also has a domino effect," Robinson said. "It's so [that] someone else, who may not have been living anywhere, can at least live in a substandard home."
According to Robinson, it was the people she met that made her trip worthwhile.
"My favorite part of the build days was getting to meet the homeowners and finding out about their stories," she said.
Robinson recounted meeting one woman in Jackson Hole, Wyo. who had been living on the street with her family after finding out that her husband had been sexually abusing her children.
"They were living in government-subsidized housing, which is not a good environment for children to grow up in," Robinson said. "If you're living in government-subsidized housing, you're living with recovering drug addicts and criminals; it's not the kind of place you'd want to raise a family."
After receiving help from Habitat for Humanity, Robinson said, the woman can now watch her children ride neighborhood-donated bicycles around the block.
Through experiences like this, Robinson said she learned that the issue of affordable housing is more complicated than most people realize.
"These people work hard, and they learn how to be members of society by paying bills and managing their homes. A lot of these people have, somewhere along the line, had problems with that," Robinson said. "As they're helping to build the houses, they learn how much work went into it, and it teaches them a lot about how to maintain their own house. I know I learned a lot about that."
Robinson said she also learned a lot about herself from the experience of biking across the country.
"I remember when we [biked] our first mountains in West Virginia," she said. "I hated West Virginia so much and wanted it to not be part of the United States anymore."
But slowly, Robinson said, she began to appreciate parts of America she had never expected to enjoy. Somewhere between the Wizard of Oz Museum, which Robinson described as "just creepy," and the world's largest ball of twine, she started seeing the trip in a different light.
"My favorite state was Kansas, which sounds ridiculous to most people," Robinson said. "There would be stretches of miles where everything in every direction was gold, and the wind blowing on the wheat would make it look like water. The sky was so perfectly blue, and it was so beautiful."
And while the trip was hard, Robinson said, it was equally rewarding.
"I remember biking up Trail Ridge Road in the Rocky Mountains, which is the highest continuously paved road in the United States," she said. "As we got near the top, we started stopping every mile - then every half mile, and then every quarter mile, and then every tenth of a mile. It was so hard - probably our steepest climb - and the air was thin. But when you got the top it was so amazing; you could see everything."
By the time the trip ended, Robinson had enjoyed herself so much that finishing became bittersweet.
"When we finally rode into Cannon Beach, we were all really excited to finally have made it, but, at that point, we were realizing that some people [members of the Bike and Build crew] were leaving the next day," she said.
That feeling, Robinson said, has made her sure that this trip won't be her last with Bike and Build.
"It really sparked an interest in me about the issue of affordable housing," she said. "I definitely want to go back and lead another trip as soon as I can."
