Wheels2Live
Shane’s cross-Australia cycle ride to help the homeless
Sydney handyman Shane Howley is preparing for the ride of his life – a 4100km cycle across Australia to raise money for homelessness charity WILL2LIVE. Howley’s RIDE2LIVE is an epic journey of pedal-power and determination. He has chosen to support WILL2LIVE – a grassroots charity for homeless and vulnerable people in the City of Sydney – as it prepares to open a new Centre to help the homeless.
His mission is to raise funds and awareness about WILL2LIVE and the WILL2LIVE Centre that is due to open in inner-Sydney Alexandria in 2025.The WILL2LIVE Centre is a place of dignity and safety for homeless and vulnerable people.
The kitchen will prepare free, satisfying and nutritious meals to provide food relief to people with no incomes or are struggling to make ends meet.The Centre will also provide vulnerable people with change facilities, health services, and hospitality training programs to help them enter the workforce.“The WILL2LIVE Centre will help change people’s lives for the better,” Shane Howley says.“They can get themselves ready for a job interview, they can learn new skills, and they have the support of other people.” A cycling enthusiast since he was a teenager in rural Ireland, Howley has cycled competitively and for recreation all his life. But his RIDE2LIVE journey across the continent is his most ambitious ride yet.His itinerary will take him from Perth to the goldfields of Western Australia, across the Nullarbor to Port Augusta, then to the Murray River at Mildura and onward over the Great Dividing Range to Sydney.
Howley is doing the ride solo, although he will be accompanied by his daughter, Marlie, in a campervan to provide his food and bed for the night.
His decision to undertake the big ride echoes the motivation that led Will Hawes to establish WILL2LIVE in 2012.
Alarmed at the numbers of homeless people in the Sydney CBD, Hawes in 2012 decided to make healthy sandwiches and deliver them to people in need.
Today, WILL2LIVE provides more than 2000 free meals a week to homeless and vulnerable people.
Opening the WILL2LIVE Centre has been a long-held dream for Will Hawes, and he is grateful to Howley and other supporters for helping make it a reality. The Centre, opposite the new Waterloo Metro station, is due to open in 2025.
Howley says he is not doing the RIDE2LIVE cycle for personal glory, but out of a desire to help others.
“If we are not looking after vulnerable people, what kind of society are we?” he says.
“The big motivator for me is to help raise a lot of money and help get the WILL2LIVE Centre open. I thought, ‘If I’m going to do this ride, I may as well do something useful’.”
How you can help
Shane Howley through the RIDE2LIVE campaign is seeking donors and sponsors to support facilities and programs for homeless and vulnerable people at the WILL2LIVE Centre.
Pledge $1 per kilometre for 4100km and you can provide:
· Free, satisfying and nutritious meals for a homeless or vulnerable person in Sydney for an entire year; or
· Support a homeless or vulnerable person to enter the workforce and gain financial independence through WILL2LIVE’s hospitality training program
About WILL2LIVE and the WILL2LIVE Centre
WILL2LIVE is a grassroots, volunteer-led response to helping people in need. It began in 2012 as a one-man operation when founder Will Hawes started making sandwiches for homeless people in inner Sydney. Today, WILL2LIVE has hundreds of volunteers who distribute 2000 free meals, warm clothes and personal hygiene products to homeless and vulnerable people.
In 2025, WILL2LIVE will expand its service to the homeless community with the opening of the WILL2LIVE Centre in inner-city Alexandria. The Centre, opposite the new Waterloo Metro station, will include a kitchen for preparation of free meals, a drop-in centre and change facilities, and a public café whose profits will go back to supporting the needy. In future, the Café will offer hospitality training for people who have fallen between the cracks, helping them re-enter the workforce and gain financial independence.
About Shane Howley
Shane Howley, 61, grew up in Birr, County Offaly, and saved to buy his first racing bike when he was a teenager. After moving to Australia in 1988, he started cycling competitively and with the Coluzzi cycle group, named for the legendary Bar Coluzzi café in Sydney.
Previous rides include the Grafton to Inverell Cycle Classic.
More information
For more information about how to support Shane Howley’s RIDE2LIVE and the WILL2LIVE Centre, go to https://gofund.me/8b044a5e
