Amador County – The PUSH America Journey of Hope picnic at Saint Sava will be Mike Sweeney’s last event as Executive Director of the Arc of Amador and Calaveras.

Sweeney plans to be fully involved, and will make the 130-mile ride with the 2012 Journey of Hope, in its first leg of the cross-country road tour. Sweeney will ride with the north route team from San Francisco to Jackson as a fundraiser for ARC. He is asking people to pledge $1 or $2 per mile for the trip.

Sweeney said Arc has two programs for supported employment and supported living, to help people with developmental disabilities get jobs and a safe place to live. He said: “Everything that we raise in this bike ride goes directly into those two programs.”

Sweeney will be retiring at the end of June after 23-and-a-half years as executive director of Arc. And Arc has been the welcoming committee and provided a barbecue meal for the PUSH America riders at Saint Sava Mission in Jackson for 23 years.

He said the men, members of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity from colleges and universities all over the country are “unfailingly polite.” He said: “Every year you wonder if they are going to be as wonderful as they were the year before, and every year they are.” PUSH stands for People Understanding the Severely Handicapped, and it rides from San Francisco to Washington D.C. to raise awareness and money.

Sweeney said he will cheat a little and take a ferry across the San Francisco Bay to get a head start over the younger college kids. The PUSH America riders will arrive at Saint Sava Mission on Tuesday, June 5. The Arc welcoming committee and barbecue will share the Mission with voters, as it is the California primary election day, but Sweeney said there will be ample room for the voters. Sweeney said: “This will be kind of my going away bash too.”

The two-month ride’s northern route goes through Jackson, and on to Lake Tahoe, then Carson City, Nevada. It starts June 2 with a ride to Napa. The north route itinerary includes 54 cities through 13 states, with rides through or stops in Carson City, Salt Lake City, Denver, Omaha, Des Moines, Milwaukee, Chicago, Ann Arbor, Cleveland, and Pittsburg and ending in the District of Columbia.

To attend the June 5 welcoming picnic at Saint Sava, and for info call (209)267-5978 ext. 21.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.