For seven days and 360 miles from Houlton to South Portland, a former Army Guardsman pedaled his 20-year-old mountain bike to raise money for the Family Readiness Group of the 488th Military Police Company based in Waterville.

A Family Readiness Group provides communications and information between deployed military personnel and the families they leave back home, connects families with community resources, and helps families with problems that arise, whether a spouse is deployed or not.

The cause is important to Brian McCarthy, who recently retired from the Maine National Guard’s 488th. He benefited from the organization many times during his 20-year military career. McCarthy, a Windham resident and South Portland police officer, used a week’s vacation to accomplish his goal of raising $1,000 through a GoFundMe page he created in mid-June. The total on the page as of Friday stood at $1,860, which will go toward providing events for Guard families during and in between deployments.

McCarthy, wearing a water-filled backpack, a purple shirt and neon green socks, started in Houlton, where a detachment of the 488th MP Co. is located, on Sept. 11 during a rainstorm. He then wound his way south on Route 1, hauling a small trailer his wife bought him at Walmart with a pair of his favorite crocs lashed to the top, peddling Down East and then along the coast through Camden, Wiscasset, Bath, Brunswick and finally to South Portland.

McCarthy credits friends, family and complete strangers for helping him cover the distance. “People I don’t know opened their homes to me,” he said.

He received a police escort and a warm welcome in South Portland on Sept. 17.

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