PORT ANGELES — An education advocate will bicycle from Port Angeles to his childhood home of Panama, N.Y., this summer to raise $100,000 for a scholarship endowment for Port Angeles High School graduates.
Tom Swanson, area manager for Green Crow Corp., said he has created the Pathway to Prosperity endowment and is raising funds to award annual academic scholarships for college or vocational students through the Port Angeles Education Foundation.
Swanson, 57, said the trip and the creation of the endowment are the union of a lifelong passion for bicycling and a family tradition of putting a high value on education.
A cross-country bicycling trip has always been a goal of his, but earlier opportunities had to be passed up, Swanson said.
“The real catalyst was the experience of watching my children graduate from the University of Washington last year,” he said.
His son, Kane Swanson, 24, and daughter, Tally Swanson, 22, are both Port Angeles High graduates.
Tom Swanson was a member of the Port Angeles Education Foundation board from 2005-08.
He said he remembers working summers to earn the money he needed to pay for a year of tuition for his own education at UW.
“You can’t do that anymore,” he said, noting that the price of tuition has far outpaced summer job earnings.
He said many students scrape through on scholarships and grants, often leaving a large balance, which either parents pay or students pay by taking out loans.
“At best, this leaves a significant number of college graduates with student loan balances in excess of $30,000,” he said.
“At worst, this prices out many deserving students altogether and constrains the achievement of their life goals.”
Swanson asked for two months off for the ride and a donation from Green Crow — and received both.
“The easiest thing to do was to ask,” he said.
Swanson said more than $60,000 has been raised for the endowment as of Tuesday— $35,000 from individual direct donations and $25,000 from Green Crow, which has pledged up to $50,000 in matching funds.
Those who want to support the effort can either make a donation through the Port Angeles Education Foundation, which will manage the endowment for Swanson, or they can sign up to ride with Swanson on May 30 for the first 25 miles of the trip, from Port Angeles to Blyn, and collect pledges per mile of the ride.
Registration for the first-day ride or direct donations to the endowment can be made at http://tinyurl.com/PDN-Foundation.
At the website, click on “Support Us” in the menu on the left side of the screen and select “Pathway to Prosperity Donation.”
After the first-day ride, Swanson’s wife, Robin, will trail him in a car for four days, after which he will ride alone to Whitefish, Mont.
He will meet his son in Whitefish, and they will ride together 460 miles to Wolf Point, Mont.
The remainder of the ride to Panama, N.Y., will be a solo trip, for a total of 3,400 miles.
Swanson said he expects to reach Panama sometime in the third week of July.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
