WOODSTOCK—St. Mary parishioner Lucca Kenyon, a 2018 graduate of Marian Central Catholic High School, is now a collegiate athlete at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wis. 

 

She’s taking on a new athletic challenge this summer — the July Biking for Babies event. 

 

One team before passed through the Rockford Diocese last summer, as will Kenyon’s this year.

 

Over the course of six days Kenyon will be cycling some 600 miles with about a dozen other young men and women, including three from St. Norbert’s. Their route runs from Green Bay to St. Louis. 

 

About Biking for Babies   The mission of Biking for Babies is to renew the Culture of Life, one pedal stroke and one pregnancy resource center at time, raising financial and spiritual support, and forming pro-life missionaries.   Over 60 college students and young adults have participated since 2009. For more information or todonate to Lucca’s ride go to https://www.bikingforbabies.com/about/

They meet on July 12 for Mass and dinner, she says, and will begin the ride early on July 13. The first day is the lengthiest — from Green Bay to Madison, around 160 miles. 

 

Kenyon is raising funds for a pregnancy care center, Clarity Clinic in Dubuque, Iowa, a connection made through the Biking for Babies organization.

 

Each rider gets in touch with his or her prolife charity, she says, which gives them a chance to ask questions and perhaps arrange an in-person visit. 

 

“What they’re looking for and why donations are so important,” were two of her questions, Kenyon says. 

 

“They also pray for us,” she says, “and we can think about (their) stories while riding.”

 

Kenyon says the ride provides another connection with the Clarity Clinic clients. 

 

“Part of the experience is not knowing every detail” of the ride, she says, including the cities where they will stay overnight. She says that she sees it as similar to what happens in crisis pregnancies for the “mothers who don’t know how their pregnancy is going to go.”

 

Kenyon’s boyfriend will be making the trip for the second time. 

 

“His best advice so far (is) ‘When you’re thinking about quitting, try to stand up for women.’ ” 

 

When it would be “so easy to stop pedaling,” we can remind ourselves that “we tell (women) to keep their baby,” she says. “We sacrifice ourselves and offer it up so they can receive the strength to have the baby.”

 

The ride will end on July 18 as her group joins three others biking to St. Louis from the northeast, south and west, forming a cross across the country. 

 

She participated in last year’s ending event, called a Celebration of Life. What prompted her to enroll in the 2020 ride was the thought that “I might as well (because I) don’t know when I’ll have a chance again,” she says. 

 

A flexible summer internship with Bunker Hill Charities in Woodstock is giving her the chance to go this year.

 

Kenyon has been getting ready since February, biking three to four days a week and doing weight lifting or other cardio exercise the other days. 

 

She’s never been on an extensive bicycle trip, she says, “just little rides with my family. So this is totally new.”

 

However, she is no stranger to prolife events. She’s been to the Life March in Chicago and in Washington, D.C. At Marian, she participated in Mime for Life as part of a group that gave talks and performances about mothers in challenging pregnancies.

 

She also was the runnerup recipient in the 2018 Right to Life Commitment Scholarship sponsored by Right to Life McHenry County.

 

Kenyon’s Catholic faith is helping her be ready for this new expression of her prolife efforts.

 

“I’m pretty nervous about it because I’ve never biked that far,” she says. “But I’ve been praying about it. Obviously I can’t do it by myself, but with prayers and God’s help I think it’ll be okay.”