Just off their first-year finals, two UConn medical students are preparing to continue the summertime cross-country bicycle tour that is now a 12-year school tradition.<\/p>\n

Sonali Rodrigues and Brett Lehner make up the 2017 Coast to Coast for a Cause team. This year\u2019s cause is \u201cAn Apple a Day,\u201d a public health project to improve access to and education around nutrition in Connecticut schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe money that we\u2019re raising goes toward planting fruit trees on campuses of high schools and other public places,\u201d Lehner says. \u201cThe idea is that those trees themselves and the fruit from them are about education and access to healthy fruit, available to anyone who comes upon it when it\u2019s ripe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lehner, who grew up in Bethel and completed his undergraduate studies at UConn, committed to the trip in January. Rodrigues, who grew up in Shelton and graduated from Northeastern University, joined on a few months later. Neither claims to be an experienced cyclist.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first heard about the trip, I figured the people who would be doing it this year would be people who were really experienced, and I didn\u2019t want to hold anyone back,\u201d Rodrigues says. \u201cBut I think Brett and I are kind of at the same level.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two plan to follow a path similar to last year\u2019s ride, mostly along the bicycle route known as the Northern Tier. It starts in Anacortes, Washington, and continues through the northern border states. They\u2019ll fly to Seattle, which is about 80 miles south of Anacortes, June 9 and start pedaling east the next day.<\/p>\n