Summer vacation is hard work for one photo student

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A. Sue Weisler | photographer

Breanna Dobbe, a fourth-year advertising photography student, is biking across the country and stopping to do community service work along the way.

Breanna Dobbe isn’t a biker and has next to no construction experience. But she’s going to learn—fast. Dobbe, a fourth-year advertising photography student, has chosen to spend her summer cycling across the United States and stopping along the way to help build houses in impoverished areas. She joined a group called Bike & Build, which organizes six similar journeys across the nation. “It’s kind of a once in a lifetime deal,” says Dobbe, a goalie on RIT’s women’s hockey team. “Not many people get to experience something like this.” Dobbe, who is a member of Bike & Build’s Southern U.S. team, left Jacksonville, Fla., June 15 and will arrive in San Francisco, Aug. 16. She’ll be traveling through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

The team’s longest stop will be in New Orleans, where team members spend four days helping to rebuild homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. “I drove through New Orleans a year ago with family, and I’m hoping it’s going to be better—because the parts we saw still looked like a disaster,” Dobbe says. “I think they can use any help that they can get, and I think it’s a great thing that so many people want to give up their summer to really help people and better their lives.” Dobbe has been preparing for this trip for months.

But between school, work and sports, she wasn’t able to get in all of the practice she had hoped for. In preparation, she biked, on average, 25-30 miles a day. An average leg on the trip is 55 miles long. “I know it’s going to be hard, but I think I’m going to be able to handle it,” says Dobbe. “I’m not going to have much of a choice. It’s just going to have to be something that I push through.” Dobbe isn’t the only RIT connection to the group.

David Mollitor, a computer science major, is traveling with a group that starts in Providence, R.I. and ends in San Francisco. RIT, led by Director of the Center for Religious Life Jeff Hering, hosts a group of Bike & Builders who stop in Rochester each year. Breanna Dobbe will be blogging about her experiences once a week on The Tiger Beat Blog. Follow her as she bikes from Jacksonville to San Francisco, stopping to do community service work in cities across the country.