By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
PEMBERVILLE—Four cyclists on a cross-country ride to raise awareness and funds for Catholic education in Belize made a pit stop Wednesday at Otterbein Pemberville Senior Life Community.
For 15 years as pastor of St. Peter Claver Church in Punta Gorda, Belize, Father Matt Ruhl has witnessed the decline of the Catholic public schools in his district.
The school children, who range from 8 to 16 years old, are being taught in deplorable conditions, with insufficient supplies and materials and substandard technology available, Ruhl said. And because Belize is a developing country in extreme poverty, the school children also have exceptional nutritional needs.
“The buildings are falling apart. There are termites, mold from flooding and killer bees” that have ruined the infrastructure over the past 40 years, he told a group of Otterbein residents.
The Belize government pays the teachers’ salaries, and the church is responsible for the buildings, supplies and materials. The funding formula split between the government and the church dates back to 1981 when Belize became independent.
“The government collects taxes to help pay for teachers’ salaries, but the church has zero money. I mean they are broke, broke, broke, period,” he said.
“One third of my kids are not only hungry, but they are stunted by malnutrition. They have no nutrition program in the schools,” Ruhl added. Many of them suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder from seeing people get murdered in an area known as “ground zero for a lot of drug trade.”
“One day, I was driving through the mountains, and I thought, ‘I’m just going to raise $1 million and fix the 27 schools in my district,” he explained. When he talked to the general manager of the Belizean Catholic schools, she asked, “What about the rest of us?”
There are 308 grammar schools in Belize, including 112 Catholic public schools, 56 government schools and 140 individual evangelical schools. The $1 million fundraising goal became $5 million.
“One of these days, I’m going to learn to shut my mouth,” he joked. ”Because there’s so much to do, this ride is hoping to raise a few flags and a few shekels” over three years to be able to disperse monies to the different schools by 2027.
Riding with Ruhl on the 3,804-mile fundraising ride from Portland, Maine, to Santa Monica, California, are cyclists, buddies and retirees Mike Johnson, Tom Makarwicz, and Jeff Chattin.
Each day, three of the men ride bicycles and the fourth one drives the sag (support and gear) wagon, traveling about 50 miles mostly on back roads. Wednesday’s route, from Huron to Bowling Green with a slight detour to Pemberville, was 67 miles. Each night they stop at friends’ homes or inexpensive motels. All their costs for food, lodging and travel are coming from their pockets, not from the money raised, Ruhl said.
The money raised from the ride and awareness campaigns will be put into an Agency Fund endowment, managed by the US Central Southern Province of the Jesuits. “If we raise 5 million U.S. dollars, that’s $10 million in Belize dollars,” he said. “It will take a few years to get it all in place, but at 4.5% interest, that gives us $450,000 a year to begin to clean up these buildings.”
Most of the buildings will be torn down and built new, because the cost will be cheaper, he said.
To date, they have already raised about $1,250,020, he said, holding up a $20 bill that one of the residents handed him after his talk. All the money will go directly to help the 27,000 kids who attend the schools.
Divine intervention?
For Sue Coffman Donaldson, the visit by the cyclists was a little bittersweet. The day of their visit was the 48th anniversary of her marriage to avid cyclist husband, Gary. He would have loved to talk with the four men about their shared love of bicycling, but last Aug. 27, he was killed while riding his bicycle not far from their villa at Otterbein Pemberville’s Senior Life community.
“It’s a divine intervention that you guys are here today. Gary would be right here with all of you and smiling because, like I told you, he cycled for 40-plus years,” she said.
The visit was also serendipitous for Angela Counterman, a member of the housekeeping staff at Otterbein. She surprised Fr. Ruhl when he and his team arrived at Otterbein. She met him 15 years ago when she was a caregiver to his beloved Aunt “Special Kay” in Florida. Counterman cared for his aunt for nine years and met him when he visited his aunt.
“He even helped bottle feed our baby goats,” she recalled.
Ruhl didn’t recognize her at first greeting, but when she told him she had taken care of his aunt, he was stunned.
“No way!” he said. “It’s like old-freaking home week.”
Learn more about the ride and how to donate
Johnson, who Ruhl called “the straw boss of organizing stuff,” said more information about the Lighthouse Ride Belize and how to donate, is available on the website at lighthouseridebelize.org or follow the team’s travels on social media: Facebook and Instagram-@belizelighthouseride.
“It’s a big, big chore, a big project, and it’s all about grassroots,” Ruhl said.
The Belizean children are the most beautiful children in the world. The ride is taking a lot of time out of my life, but I would die for these kids,” he said. “I love these kids. They have gotten the short end of the historical stick, and that’s why we’re doing this.”
