Hi! My name is Sarah Cocuzzo and I’m a senior at Brown University. I am concentrating in Gender and Sexuality Studies, with a focus in Anthropology, though I’m not sure where that will take me later in life. I’m very much interested in sexual health and education, and my most recent post-grad idea has been a master’s in public health – but we’ll see! Another major passion of mine is music. I’m the head conductor of the Brown Band (a delightfully irreverent organization that also happens to be the world’s only ice-skating band) and I play in an all-saxophone ensemble called the Smokin’ Reed Saxtet.
I’m originally from a rural town in Connecticut, about halfway between Hartford and Springfield. I’ve been fortunate enough to do a bit of traveling in the U.S. and Europe, but there is still so much of my own country that I haven’t seen yet. I hadn’t even been to the West Coast before this summer! The idea of traveling through small towns and cities, just chatting with the locals and getting a sense of the culture, makes me incredibly excited. I’m even more excited about making the trip by bike – cycling is by far my favorite athletic pursuit, but I’ve never done a multiple-day (let alone multiple-month) bike trip before.
Incidentally, I like building just as much as I like biking. In high school I was a part of a very active youth group that, on the week-long service trips we took each year, would inevitably be told by the organization with which we were working that we were so efficient at building that they had to scramble to keep up. During my first trip, I helped to rehabilitate houses in Appalachia. I had never seen the effects of economic inequality as dramatically as I did in this Virginia coal-mining town, and the experience stuck with me. At Brown, I have been active in Habitat for Humanity, culminating in a week-long trip to New Mexico during winter break last year. I love the hands-on work of building, the feeling that I’m tangibly making a difference in the lives of others, with a product I can see even after a day or two.
Most of all, I’m so excited to meet people from a variety of backgrounds who are as passionate about biking and building as I am. I have heard amazing things about Bike and Build from friends who have participated, and all of them talk about the incredible people they met and friends they made. I can’t wait to meet you all in June!
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