By Katie Wagner, Staff Writer
Lisa Tylee spent four years volunteering in shanty towns in Venezuela and has co-founded an organization called Veninos, which raises funds dedicated to improving the lives of Venezuelan children in need.
Ms. Tylee, 40, from Great Britain, is riding throughout the United States, powering her bicycle with one leg to raise awareness and money for the children in a venture she’s named Cycle Challenge USA. As of Saturday evening, she’d completed approximately 2,500 miles of the planned 8,500-mile trip she began on March 1 in Houston, Texas.
A slightly sweaty Ms. Tylee pedaled hard into Mediterra’s front patio Saturday evening. She stopped in Princeton to pick up a check for close to $5,000 and to dine with those who helped raise the money like Luis Martinez, a Venezuelan chef for Teresa Caffe, which is part of the same restaurant group.
Mr. Martinez donated his time cooking at a Veninos benefit dinner held April 27. The food and venue were donated by the restaurant group’s owners Carlo and Raoul Momo.
Mr. Martinez said when he heard about what Ms. Tylee was doing for the people in the country where he was born from a Spanish teacher in Princeton he felt compelled to help her.
The bicycle trip marks Ms. Tylee’s official introduction of Veninos to the United States, which has been established in the United Kingdom for a few years but was only registered as a charity in the United States this year.
”We wanted to take the organization to other places that have a particular interest in Venezuela,” Ms. Tylee said. “I also wanted it to be a real challenge and since I hadn’t been on a bicycle since I was kid prior to training for this event it really has been.
”It’s a mindset and you’ve got to think this is what I’m going to do today,” Ms. Tylee said, of the 50-plus miles a day she’s been riding to raise money through Cycle Challenge USA.
