Julie's bio: 
My name is Julie Bursch and I am from Nashville, TN. Biking has never really been my forte. I am a rather lanky individual with an unimpressive amount of muscle on my bones. I once committed to an 11-mile bike ride in the Smoky Mountains, which did not end very well, to say the least. Some of my closest friends and family have greeted my Bike and Build ambitions with sincere skepticism, but they are not at all surprised by my tendency towards adventure. Though I am a little surprised myself for committing to extensive biking, I am wildly excited about the summer ahead. If there is anything I have learned for certain, it is to take absolute advantage of the health and opportunities of my youth. So I reached the conclusion that if I am ever to bike across America, the time is now. I know it will be a particularly difficult challenge for me, considering my inexperience with biking. I have already begun training, and in each spin class, I envision myself in the midst of a Bike and Build group storming through the Rocky Mountains. Once the Pacific Ocean is in sight at the end of the summer, I will revel in my physical and mental evolution since that bike ride in the Smokies. As a student at Tulane University, I have witnessed the urgent necessity for affordable housing in a city that has been plagued by a natural disaster. I have worked with affordable housing organizations in Miami, Nashville, West Virginia, Maine, and New Orleans. In high school, I organized my volunteer club?s involvement in a student build with Habitat for Humanity. Over a nine-month period, we raised $3,000 and joined other high schools in our city to build a house for a family from Kurdistan. After my involvement with Habitat for Humanity, I knew I wanted to continue and expand my relationship with similar organizations. I am constantly looking for amazing ways to spend my summers, and I decided that Bike and Build would be the perfect program. It encompasses everything I am looking for in an adventure: improvement of physical and mental health, an environmentally friendly mode of transportation, dedicated volunteer work to communities, extensive travel, and an opportunity to meet and bond with ambitious people from around the country. My free time mostly consists of figuring out how I am going to fit everything I want to do into the short span of a lifetime. I have traveled extensively throughout the United States and Western Europe. I am in the 7th year of my endeavor towards fluency in Spanish, and I plan to study abroad in Argentina. I enjoy discussing politics, and was very involved in the 2008 presidential election. I intend to double major in Environmental Studies and Political Science with the hopes of going into environmental law someday. Though I am a little hesitant of the physical demands that Bike and Build will put on my spindly legs (not to mention the permanent tan lines), I am confident that I can do it. I absolutely cannot wait to begin my experience with Bike and Build!
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