BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — A navy veteran is on a mission to raise awareness about veteran homelessness. He’s biking thousands of miles across the country, and he’s in Western New York today!

His name is Michael Beattie. He’s 67 years old and he’s already biked 11 thousand miles!

Mike has about one thousand miles left, he plans to  bike 12 thousand total. He’s from Connecticut, and left there about 4 months ago. He biked down the east coast to Florida, then west to California, all the way up the pacific west coast and headed back east, hitting Western New York today.

He rides an average of 80 miles a day, totally by himself with about 75 pounds of gear to carry. Mike is on a mission to spread awareness and raise money for the feed our vets food pantry in Utica, NY.

“When I retired at 65 I traveled around the country in a camper and I did a lot of hiking and I got to see firsthand how bad the veteran hunger problem in the country is. I did some research, there’s approximately 130,000 veterans that are homeless everyday and there’s another close to 3 million veterans and their family members that don’t have enough money to buy food at the end of each month,” said Michael Beattie, Navy Veteran.

Mike still has a few weeks of biking ahead of him before he makes it home.

Donations can be made at feedourvets.org