Why I'm riding
My parents came here from Poland. I was the first in my family born in this country. I watched them struggle the way immigrants struggle — and I also watched them hold onto a belief that this place could offer their kid something better. That belief is the inheritance they actually gave me.
In 2007, before I was old enough to vote, I started organizing for Barack Obama's campaign. When Ohio went blue in 2008, it felt like proof — like the belief my parents carried had been right about the country, and right about this state.
The years since have been harder to watch. Ohio has moved steadily right, and "progressive" and "Ohio" have drifted so far apart that people say them together like a joke. In 2025 the legislature passed Senate Bill 1, which banned DEI offices and scholarships at every public university in the state, required a post-tenure review process that effectively ends tenure, barred faculty from striking, and prohibited universities from taking positions on "controversial" topics — a list that names immigration and climate policy outright. More than 1,700 people testified against it. It passed anyway.
I've spent most of my career in this work — community organizing, running campaigns, mostly on the two-year clock that election cycles run on. And I've learned what that clock costs. Money pours into Ohio every other autumn and vanishes the week after. The organizers who actually live here are left to rebuild from nothing, again, every time.
The Ohio Giving Collective is a group of Ohioans pooling our money to fund the other thing: the year-round, county-level, foundational organizing that builds durable power. Not one candidate. Not one campaign. Not one election. I want the next generation here to see the hope I saw in 2008 — but built from the ground up this time, so it doesn't leave when a campaign does. That's what I'm riding for.
Chip in for the ride
Any amount helps. Some people are pledging by the mile — a dollar a mile comes to $326, a quarter a mile to about $82. Or just give what feels right.
You can read more about what the Collective funds at ohiogivingcollective.com.
Stay in touch
If you donated, let me know here — including roughly how much — so I can keep you posted on where the money goes and what the Collective is funding.
And if you want to follow along on the ride itself, ask for a password below. I'll send you a link to a live tracker: where I am on the map, how far I've gone, photos from the trail, and a board where you can leave me something to read at lunch. You don't need to donate to get a password. They're two separate things.
The tracker shows my location in real time, so passwords are unique to each person and I'd ask you not to pass yours on. 2 people are following along so far.