As Gina Raimondo enters the most grueling stretch of her cross-country trip, she thinks of the people helped by her efforts.
Raimondo belongs to the Bike the US for MS TransAmerica team, a group of cyclists currently biking from Yorktown, Virginia to San Francisco in an attempt to raise money and awareness for multiple sclerosis research. Raimondo, 40, was the subject of a cover story in the April 2014 edition of the Hamilton Post. She is the only New Jersey resident to participate in the ride.
As of July 1, she was scheduled to be in western Kansas, 1,940 miles from the starting point and more than halfway to the finish line. This month, she will bike into Colorado, across the Continental Divide, as well as the states of Utah, Nevada and California. The ride ends Aug. 1.
In a June 14 email update, Raimondo—with the assistance of Bike the US for MS program manager Cassie Wertz—said the team had completed two volunteer service projects. Both projects helped individuals living with MS in Blacksburg, Virginia. Service days are scheduled into the trip, and team members like Raimondo will help with anything the people ask, including lawn maintenance, painting and cleaning.
In Blacksburg, the TransAmerica team focused on lawn care, maintenance projects, planting flower gardens, cleaning lawn furniture and helping one person with MS prepare for a garage sale. In Charlottesville, Virginia, the team delivered $10,000 to University of Virginia’s James Q Miller MS Clinic, which would help provide funding for a home modification for a local woman living with MS, and an accessible van for a local family.
For more information, go online to biketheusforms.org.
