Photo provided The Hotter than Haiti Bike Ride will be on July 26, starting at St. Bartholomew Catholic Church.
St. Bartholomew Catholic Church will be the starting point of the seventh annual Hotter than Haiti Bike Ride on July 26, with proceeds going toward helping women in Haiti through ALFA, an adult literacy program.
The Hotter than Haiti Ride began in 2018, according to Katy Prestel, a member of the church and the organizing team behind the event, the Friends of Haiti at St. Bartholomew Catholic Church.
This ALFA program, which started in 2002, works to provide multi-level literacy classes for women and peasant farmers in villages surrounding Limonade, Haiti. Twenty people work for ALFA in Haiti, including 18 instructors, who monitor and teach classes four times a week.
“Basically an individual in Haiti, an individual woman, on average has about a year of formalized education.” Prestel said. “So, very difficult for them to read, write, even sign their name. Many times a Haitian woman signs her name with an X for that.”
The ALFA program is entirely self-funded outside of support from the Steve Sinnott Foundation in the United Kingdom, Prestel said. She said they raise about $30,000 a year through parish and community activities, and they host multiple fundraisers throughout the year including the Hotter than Haiti bike ride.
She said they always try to do fundraising that focuses on more than writing a check, but rather on gathering the community and parish together for a celebration, she said.
“… our Hotter than Haiti ride celebrates what we call Haiti Sunday and that is a weekend dedicated to our twinning parish in St. Anne and it is always on the last weekend of July because that is the Feast of St. Anne in Haiti,” Prestel said.
The bike ride consists of a 10-mile route and a 20-mile route, both of which are mostly flat, Prestel said. Riders will travel along the people trails near the Columbus Municipal Airport and minor streets of downtown. For the 20-mile route, riders will go further on the people trails out by Tipton Lakes, she said.
“We have ‘sag’ wagons out on the road to make sure that… if they have any difficulty out on the course, they’re able to call in and we can send a ‘sag’ wagon to their location, pick up their bike and so forth,” Prestel said. “We have two water stations, one of our water stations has a nurse on the course just to make sure that no one is suffering from heat exhaustion or dehydration or anything like that, so they’re on the course as well to assist.”
A free cookout will be held following the bike ride, and community members are invited to stop by this cookout even if they did not participate in the ride, Prestel said. She said they average around 60 to 80 participants each year during the ride, but some years they have had up to 110.
The ride also coincides with St. Bartholomew’s Haiti Sunday Weekend, which will celebrate over 30 years of the parish twinning with the St. Anne parish in Limonade. The weekend will highlight their sister parish and the country’s culture, in addition to a second collection that will go towards supporting the ministries in Haiti, St. Bartholomew Catholic Church pastor Chris Wadelton said.
“… the whole weekend is a way to celebrate our relationship and to bring that relationship to all the people to the parish,” Wadelton said.
Prestel said they usually raise roughly $4,500 to $5,000 from the Hotter than Haiti rides, enough to provide 10 teachers’ salary for a quarter of a year. She said they would always like to raise more, but they are happy with the average raised.
“We just hope that it’s a fun and enjoyable ride, whether it’s with family or friends, that they come back and have a positive experience here on our campus, to relax and enjoy the company of the community and ultimately to further our growth and support of our ALFA program and our Haiti ministry,” Prestel said.
To sign up, visit eventbrite.com/e/hotter-than-haiti-2025-tickets-1428145966029. Registration is also available the day of the ride. Questions can be directed to haitialfa@gmail.com or to the St. Bartholomew Parish’s main office at 812-379-9353.
