Journey of Hope: Statler students pursue cross-country trek for a good cause

Statler College students Austin Brown and James Carte can now check an epic adventure off their bucket list: cycling for charity from coast to coast. Now with their feet back on the ground in Morgantown, they’re reflecting on their cross-country journey full of endurance, determination, pizza and choreographed dance routines.

Story by Kaley LaQuea, Communications Specialist
Photos by Austin Brown and James Carte

Brown and Carte set off from Seattle with the Journey of Hope Transamerica team in May, raising money for their fraternity Phi Kappa Phi’s philanthropy initiative The Ability Experience. 

With 180 active chapters nationally, the organization works to empower individuals with disabilities through its annual bike-a-thon fundraisers.

Brown and Carte grew up together in Pittsburgh, PA and decided to embark on the challenge after hearing about the journey at a fraternity meeting. Carte, who’s majoring in biomedical engineering, learned to ride a bike in order to join the team. Brown, an electrical and computer engineering student, enjoyed the challenge of daily rides and building brotherhood with his teammates, but he found the friendship visits especially fulfilling. 

Together Brown and Carte managed to raise over $18,000 to benefit a disability resource center in Beckley. The team stopped at several resource centers along the 4,000 mile trek to meet with excited residents and staff ready to cheer them on. 

“Getting to go to all these centers across the country and seeing all these people from different walks of life and different struggles was definitely the most rewarding of the trip,” Brown says.

Along the way Brown and Carte prepared for one Journey of Hope tradition they weren’t expecting — a dance battle against the reigning champions of the North cycling team.

“We had a little — not little, a big — choreographed dance for a competition,” Carte explains.

One of their Transamerica teammates, a former competitive dancer, came up with the moves and helped lead the team to victory.

“He wrote this choreography for us and we practiced it for hours every day, just making 19 to 25-year-old guys dance every day to Dua Lipa after riding like 100 miles. It was the first time in five years that the Transamerica team won it, so that was awesome.”

Between visits, Brown and Carte found the camaraderie and motivation to keep going. Rain or shine, they pedaled their way over mountain ranges, through foggy pastures and busy city traffic, finally reaching Washington, D.C. at the beginning of August. 

“It was a surreal moment just like turning this corner of this trail with woods all around and then you just see the Washington Monument sticking out of the ground,” Brown remembers. “And I just had the biggest grin on my face for the next couple miles into DC, it was just such a crazy feeling.”

Carte recalls seeing his parents for the first time in over two months, cheering him on as he crossed the finish line.

“I just felt so happy. You know all the struggles I had, Lord knows I had a lot of them, but I just knew I'd finished and I'd made it,” he says. “It was just hard to put into words, I can't even describe it. It was just such a good feeling.”

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