Pedaling to empower

Three years ago, Wheaton College 2008 graduate Ryan Patch set a personal goal to bike cross-country to mark his completion of college in a grand and memorable way. Well, the time has arrived. But his personal goal has grown broader and deeper. Not only is he planning to pedal from California to Boston, he also plans to raise $50,000 to empower poor villagers in Nicaragua.

Last summer, Patch spent time in the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere creating and funding microcredit as part of his project for peace, which was funded by Wheaton. His $5,000 grant helped to fund small loans to 28 individuals to help them expand or start businesses, which made a big difference in their lives. His 4,400-mile bike trek, dubbed Pedal for Peace 2008 (www.pedalforpeace2008.org), will help to expand the loan program, which Patch carried out through the Foundation for International Community Assistance in Nicaragua.

"I learned about the power of microcredit to empower the lives of individuals living in crippling poverty throughout the country," said the Lexington, Mass., resident. "I wanted to find a way to bring the reach and effectiveness of microcredit to more individuals throughout Nicaragua, and using this bike trip as a vehicle to spread the message became readily apparent."

"The goal of this bicycle journey across the United States is to bring the stories and realities of Nueva Guinea, Nicaragua, coast to coast while helping the people who hear these stories find a way to affect positive change," he said. "Individuals who hear the stories will be empowered to know that they can make a difference."

Patch hopes the trip will raise $50,000 to finance new microcredit banks throughout Nicaragua. "So many of the people I met during my work in Nicaragua told me that the biggest obstacle in their lives was their lack of access to credit."

He has received his bachelor's in global economics, a major he designed to explore the dynamics of world poverty. Now the trek begins. On June 14, he will fly out of Logan Airport in Boston to San Diego with his best friend, Vermont teacher Peter Driscoll, who will share the ride and the fundraising effort. They plan to embark on a route that will take them through the Grand Canyon, the Rockies of Colorado, the plains of Kansas, across the Mississippi River, through Missouri, to Lake Erie in Ohio, Canada, Niagara Falls and the Adirondacks of New York state. Then, they will take on the rolling hills of Vermont back to Boston, "where we'll dip our wheels in the Atlantic, 65 days after we've dipped our wheels in the Pacific," said Patch.

Good thing Patch is a triathlete and competitive cyclist who has been training and racing his bicycle for five years. (Driscoll is a physical education teacher.) For the past three years in preparation for this trip, he and Driscoll have taken 100-mile bike treks each October.

And after the journey? "I am planning to continue my work acting as a bridge builder between communities to help individuals achieve economic self-sufficiency and choice in their lives," said Patch. "I'm returning to Nicaragua in September, with Delilah Griswold '08, where we will be living and working on a permaculture farm in Ometepe, Nicaragua."

After Nicaragua, he plans to enroll at the SIT Graduate Institute in Brattleboro, Vt., to pursue a master's in sustainable development.