JOMONOLA ride links Joplin and New Orleans

Forty cyclists participating on the JOMONOLA ride recently rode 800 miles from Joplin, Missouri, to New Orleans to raise $150,000 for charities helping rebuild after the Joplin tornado and Hurricane Katrina disasters. 

The Joplin Globe covered the riders arrival in New Orleans:

Hogan, the executive director of Rebuild Joplin, and the other riders concluded their journey late Saturday despite 65 additional flat tires, along with broken pedals, wheels, spokes and chains, and triple-digit temperatures.

“We’ve been talking a lot about parallels — what people go through after a storm and in doing an 800-mile bike ride,” Hogan said Sunday. “You know, people do things right. They have jobs, houses, insurance, then the tornado takes them away. But I remember seeing the beauty and humanity immediately afterward. How many people there were — people not even from Joplin — who were there to help pick up the pieces.”

The goal of the ride was to raise $150,000 to support the construction of a home in each of three storm-ravaged areas: Joplin (May 2011 tornado), New Orleans (Hurricane Katrina in 2005) and the East Coast (Superstorm Sandy last October).

Of the 30 riders, half were from the Joplin area and half came from places including Louisiana, California, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Hogan said he will drive the 15 Joplin area riders home today in the JOMONOLA bus after a tour of storm-affected areas in New Orleans.

“Besides each having to raise $5,000 and train, they had to take 12 days off, ride 10 days in the heat, invest in a bike and equipment, and they were doing it for people they’d never met,” Hogan said.

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