Power & Class

Jon Korhonen ‘06 bikes cross-country for charity drive

July 24, 2008

Two young men. Two bikes. Thirty-five days. Three thousand, five hundred miles. One goal … remarkably accomplished.

University of Massachusetts graduates Andy McCarron and Jon Korhonen biked from Boston to San Francisco this summer, finishing their fund-raising effort Friday when they crossed the Golden Gate Bridge.

“The reason we decided to do it was for fun and for the adventure,” McCarron said. “We’ve wanted to do something like this for a while. Once we committed to it, we decided we might as well raise some money for a good cause.”

McCarron and Korhonen have raised $16,000 for the Children’s Hunger Foundation, which serves children worldwide.

The pair left Boston Harbor June 14, trekking through New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Nevada before reaching California. They averaged 100 miles a day.

“The thing that was most sur- prising was the hospitality of the people we met along the way,” McCarron said. “It was really amazing. Every night we’d pull into a town, looking for a place to stay or a grocery store to buy some food. People were willing to help us out, give us directions, tell us places to go and people to see. People let us put up our tent in their back yard, or let us stay in their house. It was eye-opening. You don’t see that sort of stuff in the news.”

McCarron is a 2005 graduate of UMass, where he was captain of the cross country team. Korhonen, a 2006 graduate, holds the school record in the mile in 4:04, and was named the 2006 UMass Scholar Athlete of the Year.

McCarron and Korhonen plan to host a celebration Aug. 16 in Amherst. To make a donation, or for any other information, go to www.coast2coastcycle.org.

By BILL WELLS
Springfield Republican
July 24, 2008