Dave Butler ’89 looked like he had just ridden a bicycle from Albany to Boston on the hottest days of the summer: His face was red from sun and wind, his tired body slumped, and his voice cracked softly with emotion and exhaustion.
“I’ve grown to love you all very dearly on this trip,” he said to the dozen or so gathered around him in the warm night air at Babson College just outside of Boston. Six other men in the group also were dressed in spandex and had just finished Safe Haven Project’s three day, 260-mile Capital-to-Capital Tour with Butler. The rest of the crowd were volunteers, road crew, friends, family, and supporters who had gathered to celebrate the end of the trip.
“We had some hard times, and learned some lessons,” Butler said, “but our experience was nothing compared to those kids we serve who are suffering with HIV-AIDS.”
Dave Butler is Safe Haven Project’s founder, CEO, and only full-time employee. For 15 years he has run this organization, which operates week-long free camps for youngsters with HIV and AIDS and provides medical care for AIDS patients in Ghana. To raise money and awareness for his cause, Butler has logged lots of miles on his bicycle, including solo trips from San Francisco to Boston in 1998 and the inaugural Albany to Boston ride in 2007.
The most recent bike tour set out to raise $5,000, but it barely makes a dent in Safe Haven’s current annual budget of more than $200K. “The tour’s mission is to bring hope to people, to bring unity to this issue, and inspire others. The money is secondary,” Butler says. Butler organized a press conference with local AIDS agencies and political leaders on the city hall steps in Albany before the cyclists launched eastward.
In everything he does, Butler personifies the little engine that could. He takes his inspiration from the youngsters he has met at Safe Haven camps in Massachusetts, Maryland, and North Carolina, the AIDS patients he visits in the small villages of Ghana, and his strong Christian faith.
His motivation for starting Safe Haven came from the story of Ryan White, a teenager cast out by his community in Indiana because he had AIDS; he died from the disease in 1990. Butler was teaching and coaching baseball at Granby’s middle school when the story broke and often talked about White's situation with his students.
Moved and saddened by White’s death, he vowed to take action and, after meeting with White’s mother and with other kids who suffered from similar prejudice, he decided to create a place where they would feel welcome and could be open about their illness and their struggles. In 1994 the first Camp Safe Haven opened on Martha’s Vineyard and 10 years later Butler made his first visit to Ghana where Safe Haven now provides a yearly regimen of AIDS drugs for 75 patients. In 2005 he took the leap of quitting his job to run the small nonprofit from his Northampton condo.
Four years later, Butler was surrounded by volunteers and staff when he hit the wall that first day out of Albany. Maybe it was the 100-degree heat, the late arrival due to a broken fan belt, or the added stress of organizing a bicycle tour on the fly. For whatever reason, his legs seized in the afternoon and he fell behind before the dreaded hairpin turn where Route 2 climbs 1,300 feet from North Adams to the high ridges of the Berkshires.
“I walked my bike into a rest stop crying,” Butler said, “but Meghan and Lauren—two of my closest people— were there and took great care of me with massage, ice, and fluids.” Butler struck a deal with his support team who feared he might be suffering from heat stroke: a 30-minute rest before trying to get back on his bicycle.
After all of his speeches inspiring others to face challenges head on, Butler knew he had to keep riding.
“This wasn’t about me,” he said. “The rest of the team can carry the Safe Haven banner and I can be the last cyclist... but I had to finish.”
Meet Dave
Safe Haven’s Dave Butler
is a panelist at the “Make
a Difference! Careers in
Nonprofits” event coordinated
by the UMass Amherst Alumni
Association on June 18,
beginning at 6 p.m., at the Holiday Inn in
Holyoke. For more information, contact Colleen
Condon at 413-577-0658 or register online at
UMassAlumni.com. See Dave, Hear Dave Former staff photographer Ben Barnhart participated in the 2008 Safe Haven bike ride to cover the story for UMass Amherst magazine. To view his narrated slideshow and hear his interview with Dave Butler, visit www.bbimages.com/safehaven/ |
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