Marist Teacher Plans 1,004 Mile Bike Trek for Financial Aid Fund

Caption: Marist teacher Owen Glennon at a pit stop during a cross country trek in 2013.

Marist High School math teacher, Owen Glennon, will cycle from upstate New York back to Chicago in support of the school. He hopes his 1,004 mile ride starting June 28 will connect students, family, and alumni to Marist, and raise money for the Financial Aid Endowment, helping qualified students in need attend Marist.

Glennon, who has taught at Marist since 1976, is an avid cyclist. He has ridden the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) 12 times. In 2013, he rode 3,200 miles from Anacortes, Wash., to Brunswick, Maine.

This year he wanted to connect two passions-cycling and Marist. Though humble about the fanfare his ride might garner, Glennon felt that any donation would be helpful to the Marist community. And the help is welcomed by the school, with more than thirty percent of families receiving some level of financial support.

“Owen’s commitment to his students both in and out of the classroom is well known, but this trek takes it to another dimension,” said Marist President Br. Hank Hammer. “Owen is well aware of the financial challenges that many of our students’ families face, and he has made a commitment to help them through this remarkable effort.”

His ride will start in Esopus, New York, home of the Marist Brothers’ Retreat Center on June 28. Glennon will spend the next two weeks on the back roads of America, traveling through rural towns in southern New York, western Pennsylvania, northern Ohio, and northern Indiana that reflect the Catholic culture along the way.

During the trek, he will be stopping at fifteen Catholic churches and shrines, including Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Chapel at Marist College, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame, and the Shrine of Christ’s Passion in St. John, Ind. He will stay overnight at several parishes along the route, as well.

Glennon hopes to help to raise funds for the benefit of Marist students, and to prompt alumni to reestablish a connectedness with Marist. A handful of alumni and colleagues will join him for portions of the ride, while many of his current students had commemorative t-shirts made, and will collectively contribute to 1,000 miles of cycling, too.

His motivation for the ride, he explained, is some of the life changing moments he has had being a part of the Marist community.

“The best of those moments have shaped what we do and who we are,” Glennon said. “We, the Marist family, become ever more blessed if, in our own ways, we look out for the youngest members of Marist and those who would be Marist so that they, too, will have those special Marist moments that help to shape what they will do with their lives and who they will become.”

Glennon will maintain a blog along the way featuring photos, journal entries, maps, and itineraries. The blog, along with the opportunity to donate, can be found at www.marist.net.

Marist will welcome him back to campus on Sunday, July 12. Details will be posted online and on Marist’s Facebook page and Twitter account as the day nears.

Source: Marist High School