Student bikes across country, contributes to affordable housing cause

After pedaling through open countryside and busy highways for weeks, Lizi Urbanowicz is more than 1,000 miles into her 4,000 mile-long bike trip across the United States to contribute to affordable housing.

Urbanowicz, a rising third-year anthropology student, is volunteering this summer with Bike and Build, a nonprofit organization that facilitates cross-country biking trips. On the trips, volunteers spend several days assisting the construction or renovation of ongoing affordable housing projects.

Urbanowicz’s 10-week-long trip began at the end of June in Portland, Maine and will end in Santa Barbara on Sept. 1.

The group of about 30 people wake up between 5 and 6 a.m. every morning, break into groups, and bike until about 4 p.m. Then, they meet up with a local host who provides the group with dinner and a place to stay for the night.

Urbanowicz raised $4,500 to participate in the program after she was accepted in November. Bike and Build volunteers then pooled the money they raised together and allocated it to different nonprofit organizations that work to increase access to affordable housing.

“Biking and building was the combination of two things I love,” Urbanowicz said. “I think we really do make a difference with (affordable housing), which is not really understood and is often stigmatized.”

Urbanowicz said she became interested in affordable housing after participating in AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps, a federal organization that places volunteers in nonprofits throughout the country.

Working alongside homeowners in San Antonio, Texas to construct houses with Habitat for Humanity helped Urbanowicz understand the many facets of the affordable housing crisis in the United States, she said.

Urbanowicz said she remembers building alongside a family in San Antonio when one of the parents told her their children would be able to catch up in school once they had a stable home.

“A lot of the time it’s choosing between heating and rent, or rent and food (to keep their home),” Urbanowicz said. “(It was influential) seeing how much (a family) having their own house could affect their health and well-being.”

Jesse Newman, another Bike and Build volunteer who met Urbanowicz in AmeriCorps, said she remembered riding with Urbanowicz’s group through Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when the day quickly turned from sunny to a heavy downpour. Their riding group was 20 miles from their final destination and past their deadline to make it back to the host family.

Despite the situation, Newman said Urbanowicz remained enthusiastic, and all four riders sat in the rain laughing and making jokes that Pennsylvania should be called “Painsylvania” because of the hilly terrain.

“Lizi stands out on the trip as one of the most positive people, no matter who she’s riding with, whether it’s raining, hot or muggy,” Newman said.

Urbanowicz said the group bikes an average of 70 miles a day, excluding 18 days when volunteers assist an ongoing housing project, and three rest days scheduled throughout the 10 weeks. She added the program has challenged her physically, but also mentally.

Andrew Urbanowicz, Lizi Urbanowicz’s brother and a rising fourth-year physics and mathematics student, said he helped train his sister at the gym throughout the past year to build her strength and confidence before the trip.

He said he admires his sister’s compassion and willingness to help others. When they were children, one of their family’s Christmas traditions was to make shoeboxes filled with toys and supplies to mail to children in impoverished countries.

“She was always more about giving than receiving, always the first to help others,” Andrew Urbanowicz said.

Lizi Urbanowicz said hearing stories about when her aunt, Andrea Siler, volunteered with affordable housing causes when she was young inspired her to take risks.

“I used to tell (Lizi) stories (about) giving back to the community … and getting together to make something that was beyond yourself,” Siler said. “I think she took to that.”

Siler said Urbanowicz inspired her to complete her own Bike and Build trip in the future.

Lizi Urbanowicz said there are many difficulties and dangers of biking across the country, such as learning to safely bike in heavy traffic, hilly terrain and inclement weather. She added she’s already had three flat tires in one day.

Volunteers must also battle the physical exhaustion, sores and leg pain of biking at least 50 miles a day, Urbanowicz said.

“You have to be very patient and flexible, and be able to roll with it, (to) take it one day at a time, and even one hill at a time,” Urbanowicz said.

She added the volunteers have received a lot of support from the local people, who sometimes give them free food from local vendors, and on one occasion, a free Ferris wheel ride at a local carnival.

“It still hasn’t really sunk in that I’m biking across the whole country,” Urbanowicz said.”It’s a hard core thing that a lot of people don’t have the ability to do (and) it’s a good way to connect to the concept of the affordable housing cause.”