The Group

If you're reading this, you probably know me. If you don't, I'm flattered and a little creeped out. Welcome to my summer.

You almost certainly don't know anything about the rest of this group. We're pretty awesome. Of course, an adventure like this would draw a pretty interesting group of young people, but I am continually astonished by our talents, humor and foibles.

We're a group of thirty-one people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-seven. We're nineteen women and twelve men. We're mostly white and from the east coast, but we do represent nineteen states (or twenty-one on some days), including California, Texas, Minnesota, and Colorado.

We include a former member of indie rock sensation Passion Pit, three collegiate athletes, five architects, two engineers, three designers, and a world champion jump roper. We've got personality coming out of our ears. We're productive, motivated and inspired by this trip and the cause. We're also impatient, annoying, and irresponsible.

The good far, far outweighs the bad. We're at the halfway point in this trip, and I get pretty sad thinking about the day that I'm going to wake up and not be able to "shark" someone, or play pitch with Joel, Paul and Megan, or talk music with Thom, or sing silly songs on the bike.