National Life Participates in Chicago Voter Trek Event
by Martha Trombley Oakes

Imagine awakening to the roar of an RV generator with the early morning sun peering into your tent. After loading up on a carbohydrate-rich breakfast, you pack up your tent, hop on your bike and ride for eight hours. On the road, you eat a simple, nutrient-packed diet of energy gel from tiny packets, energy bars, swigs of water and a few random bugs. You meet town clerks, mayors and countless interviewers along the way. For six weeks you live like this, pedaling your way from Vermont to Wyoming - bringing a little bit of Vermont to each stop - all in the name of registering voters.

This is the life of the Great American Voter Trek cyclists. Last week, I met up with the cyclists in Chicago where they were registering Illinois voters at the Lakeview Music Festival.

National Life Group is a major sponsor of the Great American Voter Trek, a six week cross-country bicycling event to educate and motivate people about the importance of voting. I chose to meet the cyclists in Chicago because it was the half way point and because it was one of their biggest voter registration events. The next biggest will be their end location in Wyoming.

After they rode nearly 1000 miles, visiting hundreds of towns across the east, taking in Niagara Falls and dancing at the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame, the cyclists were just as energetic and eager to register voters and talk about the Voter Trek's mission as they were when they started their journey in Burlington, Vermont on June 16.

The music festival, where the I met the cyclists, is located next to Wrigley Field. The event was filled with live music, tastings from area restaurants and goods from local merchants. But it was also filled with potential voters all wanting to know more about the Voter Trek. We registered almost 100 voters, gave away 1000 bags of Morse Farm kettle corn donated by National Life, 2000 packets of Cabot Cheddar Cheese and dozens other prizes from Vermont.

The Trek began June 16 at the University of Vermont and will end July 31 at the University of Wyoming. Six students from the University of Vermont, St. Michael's College and Middlebury College are bicycling more than 2,000 miles and registering hundreds of people to vote.

I was inspired and intrigued to hear about life on the road for these six young students. From the dawn's early hours into the evening, this group is on the go. The riders sleep in tents at night, but they have a huge Voter Trek RV with electricity, a rest room and other amenities. A typical day doesn't allow for much downtime. The day is filled with 7-8 hours of riding, a quick shower, dinner, whirlwind tours of local attractions and countless meetings with the media. In between all of this the group stops once a week, at a laundromat, to wash and dry the few shorts and jerseys they've ridden in all week. Just watching them made me tired!

Each rider in the group has different interests, stories and levels of bicycling experience, but one theme binds the group together: unwavering passion to inspire young voters.

Says Ali Tesoriero Saslafsky, a senior at the University of Vermont and a Voter Trek cyclist, "It's not about who you are voting for, it's just that you do it!"

(July 9, 2008)