Richter’s official title now is Ambassador for Care-for-Rare America, a foundation that is dedicated to the treatment of children facing rare diseases. In his role, Richter is able to make his own childhood dream come true as he tries to raise awareness for so many children who don’t get to grow up with dreams like his.

His dream: to ride a bicycle across the United States.

“When I was 8 years old, I got a book from my grandma about a guy who cycled the world. … That was the moment I said when I am grown up, I will cycle the U.S.,” Richter said.

“That was the time with Apollo where the U.S. was the big dream, everyone else wanted to be an astronaut.

OBSERVER Photo by Braden Carmen Jorg Richter, Ambassador for Care-for-Rare America, rides his bicycle across the United States to raise awareness for children battling rare diseases.

I was a US fan back then.”

Richter first became a firefighter at age 19, but his career was cut short when he needed back surgery. The procedure rendered him partially paralyzed in one leg.

“I had to leave the brotherhood when I had a back surgery and my leg was paralyzed. Back then the insurance companies said they weren’t going to take that risk. … I’m not in for running a marathon anymore, but I’m still able to sit on a bike for eight hours,” said Richter.

Beginning last March in San Francisco, Richter took off on his journey to cycle across the U.S., with his sights set on New York City in September. Now a month away from his final destination, Richter is taking his time through New York state.

That is what brought Richter to Dunkirk on Friday afternoon. He was welcomed in by the Dunkirk Fire Department to take a break and recharge before hitting the road again the following morning. Each of Richter’s trips are aided by local fire departments in the places he passes through who open their doors to give Richter a place to sleep each night.

“Back when I started as a firefighter at 19, if someone told me I would end up at Lake Erie in Dunkirk, I would’ve asked what for, but it was meant to be,” said Richter.

Richter said his dream was postponed for many years because of school, jobs and various other things in life that got in his way, like many childhood dreams are. But that changed in 2014, when Richter lost three of his closest friends all within a year.

“That was the moment when I said, ‘It’s on the bucket list, now it’s time. I’m not going to postpone anything anymore.’ Life is over like that,” he said.

Richter planned his first major trip in 2015, and part of what motivated him along the journey is that a friend of his had a childhood with a rare illness.

“I said that I’m not only going to fulfill my own personal dream. There should be sense in it,” he said.

That led Richter to research organizations looking to aid children with rare illnesses, which led him to Care-for-Rare.

“We were looking for each other. It looks as if we were meant for each other,” Richter said.

Richter is now in his eighth trip to benefit the ailing children, beginning with a trip from Seattle to New York in 2015. In 2016, he traveled from San Francisco to Las Vegas; from Munich, Germany to Madrid, Spain in 2017; San Francisco to New York in 2018; tours across Germany in 2019 and 2020; across the Mediterranean region finishing in Munich in 2021; and now back in the U.S. for the San Francisco to New York trip once again, though this time with a slightly different route. Richter altered his route during the current trip because children’s hospitals he planned to visit kept safety restrictions in place limiting him from interacting with the patients.

In previous trips, Richter was able to deliver teddy bears to the children he met in hospitals. The teddy-bear company Steiff would deliver boxes of stuffed animals to the hospitals upon Richter’s arrival before the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, with hospitals taking extra precautions to keep the children safe, Richter carries one Teddy-bear with him throughout the journey, with a small sack attached to it to collect cash donations.

Though he is unable to have the same sort of interactions as in previous trips, Richter remembers some of his past interactions with children to motivate him to continue on his journey.

“One of the kids said, ‘You are the stinky, sweaty, colorful cyclist who is coming to entertain us today.’ … That’s the perfect compliment you can get from a kid. … I am proud of it,” Richter said.

The perspective of a child is a special thing, even more so from children like Richter has encountered who are forced to live such a different life from many other children their age.

“I always say there are good days, very good days and extremely very good days. Even the days when it is raining, when I have a headwind, when it’s cold, that’s already a good day because I am able to live it,” said Richter. “These kids that I see, they are dying with a disease that is still incurable. These kids will never experience something like that – being dirty, sweaty, tired – because they are not allowed to leave the hospital.”

Richter recalls children being mesmerized by the smell of his sweat. Referring to the salt on his skin from sweating, one child asked Richter, “What is that white stuff on your arm?”

“For us, we take it for granted. We take a shower because we want to get rid of it, but for these kids, that’s stuff to remember,” said Richter. “In the bad times when I have 40 miles of headwind, that’s what keeps me going. I think how my friends are dead, they aren’t going to experience something like this once again. The kids themselves won’t either. … I’m the blessed one.”

Once his current trip is completed in September, Richter will have traveled over 33,000 miles and visited over 440 fire stations. “It’s sort of a special legacy,” he said.

“My son always tells me ‘Dad, you’re an old man. Otherwise you wouldn’t be so crazy’,” said Richter. “I’m still crazy enough to enjoy stuff like that. What’s better in life?”

A typical day on the road for Richter is contingent upon the weather – sometimes he will wake up around 4:30 a.m. and get ready to leave, other days it will be closer to 6 to 7 a.m. He always has a destination in place for the next stop where he can eat and rest, sometimes set far in advance, other times coordinated the day before by the fire station he is staying with at the time. Often times he accompanies firefighters on a call while he is their guest, as a former firefighter himself.

“The brotherhood always takes care of me. I know there is a station that is going to open the door,” Richter said.

Richter’s next stop organized in advance is a meeting at the children’s hospital in Rochester this Friday, so in the meantime, Richter is taking his time through Western New York. His flight out of the U.S. is on Sept. 10.

“The overall message I try to share is don’t postpone your dreams. Don’t let them be destroyed by anyone who says that’s impossible or that’s not going to work. That’s what I always heard from former colleagues. ‘You want to cycle the US? No one is going to be interested in that.’ … Well, there are people interested in that,” said Richter. “Live the dream, at least try to live the dream. That’s what I learned from the kids. Sometime you won’t be able to do it anymore. That’s what the kids know, but they enjoy the day when I show up. They are not worried about the next day. Today is the day.”

For more information or to donate to Richter’s cause, visit care-for-rare-america.org/jorg