Peabody Native Planning 3,000-Mile Bike Trek

PEABODY, MA -- This isn;t a casual, weekend bike ride. It's not even a century ride, the cyclists' equivalent of a marathon. It's a whole string of century rides that will take Amanda Smith, of Peabody, from the Florida Keys to the Canadian border in Maine. And along the nearly 3,000-mile route, Smith and her fellow riders will be working to raise awareness on the need for more affordable housing in the U.S.

Smith, who graduated from Peabody Veterans Memorial High School in 2010, will be riding with other volunteers between the ages of 18 and 29 for a group called Bike & Build. Each rider has pledged to raise at least $5,000 before the start of the trip. Along the way they'll be stopping in several cities, including Miami, FL, Savannah, GA, Charleston, SC, Raleigh, NC, Richmond, VA, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, PA, New Haven, CT, Salem, MA, and Portland, ME, to volunteer with local affordable housing organizations and build sites.

That part of the trip is not new for Smith. After graduating from Stonehill College in 2014, she served two terms with Americorps in New Orleans and then took a job as a project manager for Habitat for Humanity. Those experiences had a lasting impact on her and on the challenges so many people havein trying to afford housing.

"Where some people would look at a rundown house and only see development potential, our team made a point to discover the individual assets of the homeowners and their properties-making sure that they felt fully supported," she said.

Smith has seen examples of the impact of skyrocketing housing prices in her native Peabody. In 2016, 4,227 Peabody residents -- or 8.1% of the city's population -- were living below the federal poverty level. That was up sharply from 2012, when Census estimated 2,839 Peabody residents, or 5.6% of the town's population, lived below the federal poverty level.

The riders will average between 50 and 100 miles on each day of the trip. When she returns to Massachusetts, Smith will be working for a company that is in charge of the management of large, commercial construction properties in the northeast.

"My goal is to carry along the values and stories that I have learned while being a part of Bike & Build, Habitat for Humanity, and SBP in this next chapter," she said. "With residential affordability and displacement being affected by commercial growth, I hope to positively influence the future of construction, promoting inner-city development by means of community engagement."

For more on Smith's ride, see her fundraising page. Subscribe to Peabody Patch for more local news and real-time alerts.

Photo by Amanda Smith.

Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).