This morning eleven incredibly kind-hearted, courageous, creative, and (a little) crazy cyclists set out for the trip of a lifetime. Over the next two months, they'll bike 3,500 miles west to Portland, Oregon because they want to ensure that people all across the country know where their next meal is coming from.

Why? Because The Dream Project gets young people giving back to their communities through biking. Since September, the team has been raising thousands of dollars and volunteering hundreds of hours with Elijah's Promise, a social service agency and soup kitchen right in their neighborhood. Elijah's Promise works to end hunger through their soup kitchen, providing education and jobs in the food industry through their culinary school, encouraging agriculture at their community garden, engaging in community advocacy and creating social enterprise food businesses that further social good.

Quick backstory: I biked to Florida with four other Rutgers students in the summer of 2013 to raise money for the non-medical needs of pediatric cancer patients. Biking changed my life which is why I started The Dream Project. The experience was so impactful for me that I wanted to create an organization to give other young people the chance to do something really cool that made a positive impact on their community.

Fast forward to the present day and now I have the honor of working with Dream Teams like Alex, Dan, Isabel, Dorothy, Jusleen, Justin, Katie, Riley, Phia, SaraAnn, and TaeHo. I am so excited to see what the next two months of cruising, climbing, crashing, cursing, and coasting have in store for them.

Wishing you could join the riders on their journey? You can (sort of). Follow along through their live videos, photos, blogs, and radio segments across all our media channels. Send them an encouraging message, ask what it's really like to eat so many peanut butter sandwiches, or just say 👋 !

Ride on,

Gabby