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I rode a bicycle across the country when I was,
when I'd just graduated college, and it was to raise money for an organization
called
PUSH America which is based out of Charlotte, and it was through my
fraternity
in college, called pi Kappa Phi; and we're the only national fraternity that
actually started its own philanthropy
and that continues to fund and sustain it today.
This bike ride started out one guy, rode across
the US in raising money for that philanthropy. And when I did it, there were seventy of us
that did the trip.
And so we all started out wanting to see the country and get into really good
shape, and be these heroes that rode into these small towns in
the middle of nowhere. And it completely blew most of us away that--
that what really impacted us about the trip had nothing to do with biking or,
you know, being heroes. It had to do with the people we got to interact with.
'Cause every town we stopped in,
we interacted with the local organization, whether it was
Easter Seals or some organization that helps people with with
mental and physical challenges. We were dancing
in spandex. We were were going to these potlucks, and a lot of times we hadn't showered.
We were doing puppet shows, and we were up
till midnight pretty much every night in these towns,
just dancing our tushes off
with, you know, people in wheelchairs. And when you're 18, 19, 20, 21, it just, it just
shattered
who we thought we were and what we thought about the world. So for me that, by far
has been the most,
probably, formative thing I've done so far in my life.