Thought everyone might like to take a look at this great video Ethan did of last year’s ride:

Most of the time we think of disasters as things like tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, or fires. But for too many people disasters are close to everyday life. CARE, our 2009 beneficiary, estimates that now 220 million people teeter on the edge of disaster, because of poverty, in their normal lives. To put this in perspective, just over 300 million people live in the U.S. (http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7622275.stm

The BBC notes that U.N. just released information that the number of who suffer from acute hunger increased last year to nearly 925 million people, up 75 million (or nearly 1/4 of the U.S. population) last year.

The World Bank also recently released figures acknowledging that their previous poverty estimates were too low. Now they estimate that 1.4 billion people live below the equivalent of $1.25/day.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7583719.stm

There is some good news, however. The percentage of people living in poverty has dropped from 50% of the world’s population to 25%.

But this is regionally concentrated. In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the percent of people living below the poverty lines has remained unchanged at a staggering 50% over the last 25 years, and the absolute number of individuals in poverty has risen from 200 million to 380 million.

Eamon

Recently NPR posted an interesting interview with one of the world’s leading medical and development experts, Paul Farmer, on how storms are devastating an already beleaguered country, Haiti.
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=08-P13-00037&segmentID=1

Farmer argues that the colonial practices of the Spanish and then French stripped Haiti of its trees, leaving bare its hills, to cultivate luxury items that we now take for granted, including sugar and coffee. Today Haitians remain impoverished, often still working in the same trades as centuries before.

Eamon

September 7, 2008

2007 Dream Ride
c/o Eamon Aloyo
1013 Portland Place, Apt. 7
Boulder, CO 80304

Dear Friends at Dream Ride,

Please accept our deep appreciation for your fundraising efforts for Partners In Health. The $1,700.00 raised through the 2007 Dream Ride is an admirable achievement and will be of tremendous assistance as we continue to work to bring medical care and social services to resource-poor settings. We would like to extend a special thank you to the riders and organizers; Eamon Aloyo, Vince Aloyo, Lindsay Clarke, Michael Duignan, Josh Farrell, Andrew Glancy, Ethan Schechter, Chris Wells, Dan Healy, and Walter Scheirer, and to Thomas and Ivy Schultz for their support. We would also like to express our gratitude to The Canaan Foundation for acting as fiscal sponsor for the 2007 Dream Ride.

Partners In Health has relied on the generosity of a relatively small group of people since we began our work in the 1980s, and we continue to rely on your support to further our success. Private contributions supply us with 40% of our total funding, allowing us to provide the “wrap around” services—food, housing, education, and community development—that are so critical to our work but often left uncovered by large institutional grants. In addition to delivering comprehensive health care services, PIH builds new homes for our patients, creates jobs in the communities where we work, sends children to school, and gives patients and their families warm meals as well as the tools to grow their own food in family or community gardens. In doing all of this, we strive to find long-term solutions that will address both the roots and the symptoms of poverty.

Thanks to your support, PIH has been able to significantly expand its reach over the past five years. We are now operating in nine countries—Haiti, Lesotho, Malawi, Peru, Russia, Rwanda, the United States, Guatemala, and Mexico—and taking on significant geographic and programmatic expansion within each of these countries. It is the growth in contributions like yours—exceeding $25 million dollars this year—that allows us to do all of this and to leverage, by example, far more support for the global health community as a whole.

Again, we thank you for your dedication to our work. Best of luck as you begin to plan for Dream Ride 2009!

Sincerely,

Edward Cardoza
Vice President of Development

What could be a better time to get excited about bike touring than during the Tour de France? Despite all of the drama associated with the Tour, the racing is still riveting, the strategies complicated, and the athletes are phenomenal. On top of it all though is the energy of the fans. Europe turns out, sometimes weeks in advance to get the best spot on the toughest climbs, to cheer everyone on and even lend a hand if a rider lags behind or needs a quick bike adjustment. This is the spirit of cycling. Even in this intense competition you will see competitors chatting and sharing a laugh together. These are times we can look forward to, sharing and learning from each other while spinning away the miles. We may not have a yellow jersey to give away at the end of the day but we will have gained something much greater while bonding through a sport we love and helping those in need at the same time. Until next time….Cheers, Jesse

After a great ride in 2007, we look towards the future with great hopes. Due to several changes in our lives (Ph.D. school obligations, marriage, etc) we have decided to postpone the DREAM Ride until the summer of 2009. Please understand that the ride is still very much alive. We have already begun planning for a bigger and better ride. We will be announcing the details of the new ride soon and beginning our efforts of promotion.

We very much appreciate your interest in the DREAM Ride. If you have any questions, please email us at questions (at) dream-ride.org

-The DREAM Ride Organizers

11 days, 902 miles, countless memories and a tremendous beginning. The 2007 and inaugural D.R.E.A.M. Ride is now behind us and it is quite safe to say that it was indeed a success. This year, seeds were sowed, laying the beginning for a great annual charity bicycle ride. Thank you to everyone involved – from organizing to support to hosting. We can’t thank you all more for all of your kindness, dedication and generosity.
Looking back on the ride with a week to gather my thoughts, I have thought most about the incredible hospitality of our hosts. Their open generosity was truly amazing. All along the route, people met us with open arms, bountiful food and kindness. It is an incredible thing to spend all day on the bike and arrive at a new location and meet strangers who have spent a good amount of their day preparing food for our arrival. They asked nothing in return but to share in the bond of solidarity. They provided the fuel of our ride – both literally and figuratively. We arrived as strangers but we left as good friends. From me and all the riders, we thank you.
And looking back, especially with all the crazy weather that we have been having this summer in New England, we were quite lucky with the amazing weather we encountered along the route. Other than one day of rain, we had pleasant sunshine throughout. We also faired quite well in the mechanical department, encountering [I believe] only a handful of flat tires for the entire group. It certainly helped, keeping to by-ways and country roads. Most had an ample and clean shoulder where we could let our attention move from the eternal watch for broken glass and pot holes and onto the rustic and idyllic landscapes through which we traveled.
As for a total of our fundraising efforts, we do not currently have a sum as we are still accepting donations. However, the fundraising response has been quite positive and for that we can’t be more appreciative of everyone’s interest and belief in the D.R.E.A.M. Ride’s mission. As I mentioned earlier, we feel very strongly that this ride is about everyone involved – involved at every stop along the way. This year’s ride was a success because we all made it happen. We hope it continues to grow and connect people. Personally, this ride gives me hope. It gives me hope to dream.

On our penultimate ride, a 75 mile day from Delmar (Albany), to Poughkeepsie, NY, we stopped at three interesting buildings. The first was one by Frank Gehry on Bard College’s campus, thanks to a suggestion of one of our generous hosts last night, John Sherman. The second two were the Vanderbilt family’s summer home on the east bank of the Hudson, and close by, FDR’s library and house.

We’ve now made it to Albany, coming from Montreal in just three days, and here are a few photos from the route.

Four more riders, Vince Aloyo, Lindsay Clarke, Michael Duignan, and Andrew Glancy just joined the Dream Ride and we just covered 200 miles in two days. It’s great to have the new riders, some of whom some of us know from last year. In the last two days we crossed from Canada to Vermont, and into New York.