August 8, 2024 at 7:00 a.m.
A RIDE OF A LIFETIME!
Last month, Catholics all across the Northeast put rubber to the road (literally) to help support mothers and babies.
Biking for Babies, a national non-profit, organizes an annual long-distance bike ride to raise funds and awareness for crisis pregnancy centers. This year, the organization’s New York Team visited the Albany Diocese during their national ride, which concluded on July 13 in Arlington, Va.
“You get to meet all these amazing people on your journey,” said Monica Drzewicki, a second-year missionary for the team. “It’s opening your eyes to all these amazing people that are around you who also share the same mind-set that want to help you and want to help other people. It’s very reaffirming.”
The New York team — comprised of nine missionaries (six bikers and three support crew) — left from Amsterdam, N.Y., on July 8 and rode over 400 miles through New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland to arrive in Arlington, staying with various hosts and stopping at various churches along the way.
The six bikers for Biking for Babies New York Team gearing up for the ride. (Provided photo)The first host stop of their journey was New Life Maternity (NLM) in Hudson, the newest maternity center in the area that opened its doors in the Albany Diocese just a month prior to the visit.
Finding New Life Maternity “was definitely a miracle,” said Drzewicki. Last year, the New York Team stayed with the Sisters of Life in the Catskills but were unable to repeat their stay this summer. Up until a month before the ride, the team still hadn’t found a place to go.
Barbara Koerner-Fox, executive director of NLM, heard about the Biking for Babies initiative and reached out to the group about staying at the maternity home.
“God has a way of placing people in our midst at the time He wants them there,” said Koerner-Fox. “The group was enthusiastic about staying and being able to pray in the home for the ministry and the women we would be serving there, and we were grateful for their presence.”
The team visited Immaculate Conception Cathedral on their route down to Hudson. (Provided photo)“There were so many rooms, and we had all this space,” Drzewicki said. It “was homey and made for families and a very safe space. We did an adoration there. We were able to talk, and a few people gave their testimonies which was really nice.”
Drzewicki added that places like NLM are the areas their ride hopes to donate to. All team members involved in Biking for Babies are assigned a pregnancy resource center that they fundraise for throughout the season. The New York Team has raised over $20,000 so far for various pregnancy centers across the Northeast.
“All of our money gets combined at the end, and then they divide it among all the pregnancy centers they have,” said Drzewicki. “It’s really beautiful.”
While open to all faiths, this year’s New York biking team was all Catholic, with missionaries hailing from Boston, Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Canada. The group tries to incorporate Holy Hour or Mass when they can along the ride, and everyone prays together at the end of the day.
Some bikers do Holy Hour while riding, others have done the Rosary together during parts of the ride. It’s both a benefit for prayer and a healthy distraction from the physical exertion of biking.
Bikers smile for a photo during the ride. (Provided photo) Drzewicki joined the New York Team last year as a biker but came back this year as a member of the support crew. During the ride, she helps maintain riders’ bikes, ensures everyone has enough water and snacks, and loads up the support van that follows the bikers along their journey. “We see the bikers as often as possible,” she said. “We’ll try to make them laugh by telling jokes or doing trivia questions, or we would ask them something to not think so much about the biking aspect.”
Drzewicki, a registered nurse from Royersford, Pa., found out about the ride through a friend but could never commit because of her job. At the time, Drzewicki was caring for a little girl, Madison, through a home-health agency. As one of her main nurses, time away from Madison in the summer was hard — not just logistically, but Drzweicki loved spending time with her.
“She was literally an angel,” she said. “I loved her.”
Drzewicki started working with Madison when she was 18 months old and diagnosed with cerebral palsy. She worked with her for three years and could tell they had a bond. Despite being non-verbal, Madison and Drzewicki always had “one of those understandings,” she said. “We would look at each other and know we were thinking the same thing. We were just on the same wavelength.”
Then, the unexpected happened: Madison died overnight. Doctors couldn’t find a specific illness tied to her death and labeled it as natural causes. The suddenness of her passing was hard to take, she said. Looking back on it, Drzewicki recalls grabbing dinner with a few friends the night before Madison died. When she stepped outside the bar, she felt a cold rush hit her chest.
“I thought I was having a heart attack,” she said. “I turned to my friends and said do you guys feel this? The next day I found out Madison passed away overnight. It was that full-circle moment of us having that connection.”
The next summer, Drzewicki joined Biking for Babies in honor of Madison. She wore a pink helmet (Madison’s favorite color) and donned it with angel stickers and Taylor Swift lyrics of songs they would always listen to together.
Drzewicki said the experience ended up healing more wounds than just the loss of Madison. Growing up, Drzewicki’s father was sick. And her family always told her to pray for a miracle for her dad, which never came.
“I thought my God was broken,” she said. It left her confused and in an odd place with men without a strong father figure for guidance. Being on the ride, and seeing other male bikers offer up compassion, love, and kindness to one another, helped Drzewicki see things differently.
“I did it originally for Madison, and then it ended up being this huge healing process for me where I was able to acknowledge all these things that I was ashamed to talk about,” she said. “It takes a lot of God’s grace and mercy to be like I’m not perfect and I needed your help, and here’s me finally doing it.”
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