Hello! Thanks for checking out my Bike and Build page! My name is Meira Shuman, but I've also gone by "Becky" in the past. I’m originally from Gainesville, FL, where I graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelors in Anthropology. Our town is famous for it's football craziness (who hasn't heard of the Florida Gators?), but it also has a sizable population of homeless people. When I was a little girl, my mother would take me with her to serve food at St. Francis House, a homeless shelter. (I think I mainly sat in the dining area and gleefully munched on thickly buttered bread while everyone else did real work.) At that young naive age, I thought the problem was just not enough houses. That was closer to the truth than I realized. The problem is that not enough homes are affordable to people in a country where people slave all day for minimum wage and have to stretch their dollars to afford rent, utilities, food, clothing, medical care, childcare, transportation, etc etc.
Now that I'm older, I understand more about how complex and yet simple many of our societal problems are. There are endless possibilities to make the world a better place. But they're all babysteps. I want to take more leaps! I took a nice big leap after UF by moving to California to do a year of AmeriCorps as an academic mentor at a juvenile hall. Every day working in that type of environment was a struggle which was more than compensated for by all the wonderful connections I made with the kids. I learned a lot about generational poverty, the problems with our educational and juvenile justice systems, and basically had my eyes opened to a whole new world of problems in our country. It's all connected in one big tangled skein. I definitely became very angry at times, frustrated at feelings of helplessness when change could be so simple and easy. My long-term dream became to open my own group home for troubled teens, in order to tackle a variety of issues in one fell swoop!
So that's my current direction. After being a gypsy for a while, traveling across the country, volunteering at the Gesundheit! Institute (farm/hospital/school founded by Patch Adams) and exploring graduate schools, I have returned to Gainesville to buckle down, work at a preschool, volunteer as a phone counselor, and start preparing for Bike and Build. I was recently accepted to Appalachian State University, where I will study Counseling and the Expressive Arts.
I heard about Bike and Build from the friend of a B&B alumni. I love being active in the outdoors and challenging myself, so was already planning a bike trip across the country. I was hesitant to go alone, because even though I was excited at this test of my abilities, I knew (and was told repeatedly) that my mother would have a daily heart attack worrying about her daughter alone on the side of the highway, at the mercy of crazy drivers and serial killers who lie in wait for little girls on bikes. Oy vey!! But when I heard about Bike and Build, it was like a dream come true!!
I'm so excited to be a part of something like this! I can't wait to start training for the ride, yet I must admit that the idea of fundraising $4000 is almost overwhelming. But it can be done! And it must! I have learned that most of our limitations are self-imposed. In addition to biking, I plan to stay active by running, rock climbing, dancing, hula hooping, etc. This summer is going to be a blast!!!! See you all in May!
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead
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