Singletrack For Life fundraiser 2019

Singletrack For Life fundraiser 2019


A group of friends in Genk, Belgium got together over the last 5 years and organised a guided MTB ride over the best trails Flanders has to offer as a fundraiser for Wheels 4 Life.

SINGLETRACK4LIFE was born! In Dec. 2019 volunteers guided over 200 people on endless sweeping trails in the area. If you can’t turn, you’ll learn it here. ‘Only’ 48km of flat terrain exhausted and surprisingly ended a few people before they expected it!

On this cold winter day they raised € 15,439.- for our cause.

Party, raffle, donations, BBQ, Belgian beers, some more Belgian beers, you name it! This has been the magic recipe to keep smiles on everyone’s face and collect over 50.000€ (over 5 years) for a cause we all appreciate; Wheels4Life.

A big thank you to all volunteers, sponsors and participants!!

Cheers Mark and the team

 

SHRED fundraising event

SHRED fundraising event

SHRED fundraiser Draper, Utah Sept. 7th

 

SHRED 2019 came about from mixing a desire to do good, with hours and hours of saddle time on a bike. We set out to raise funds and awareness for Wheels4Life and after some planning, coordinating, promoting, and of course, hours and hours of training time, the event came together. Riders of all ages and skill levels were invited to come and ride the Corner Canyon trail network any time throughout the event date. Some riders were on dawn patrol, starting at 5:30 AM, while others started at various times though the day. Others still joined in after being invited by riders on course! One rider, Sam Buckmiller built his entire summer training around climbing and getting donations based on his total ascent. He ended the day at 13,333 feet ( 4,064 m ) of vertical, backed by generous donors who gave accordingly.

We had a fantastic time supporting a great cause! Thanks to all those who gave so willingly, provided prizes, gave needed encouragement, and rode hard. We hope to continue the dream of SHRED, which is Share Hope, Ride Elevated, and Donate!

($ 1,400.- were raised to benefit Wheels 4 Life – thank you all)

 

Rock 4 Bikes 2017 Fundraiser Event

Rock 4 Bikes 2017 Fundraiser Event

In the past Wheels 4 Life hosted sit down dinners with live music, dancing, live and silent auctions and raised between $56,000 and $58,000 to enable the buying of bicycles for people in great need of transportation throughout the developing world. This year it was decided to create an event that would allow guests to mingle in a cocktail party environment whilst listening to and dancing to some truly excellent music.

The evening opened up with guests arriving to the beat of local California Reggae band “Common Sense” as they sipped cocktails, perused the auction items and enjoyed the appetizers served by GnarlyQ.

The party held at the residence of Dr. Sten and Elizabeth Kramer was in full swing as the sun set, light dimmed and we were treated to songs like “Hey Soul Sister” performed by Charles Colin from Train, Stan Frazier from Sugar Rey and Scott Owen from Pawnshop Kings.

For the first time Wheels 4 Life employed a professional auctioneer, Dawnmarie Kotsonis, well know by many that attend charity functions as being exceptional at what she does.  After a few words from Wheels 4 Life co-founder Hans Rey explaining the charity, why we do it and how, followed by four short videos from project leaders in the field, Dawnmarie launched into the live auction.  Six items including a Porsche experience at their purpose built test track outside of LA and a Bosche Benno e-bike, went quickly as Dawnmarie fired off the bids and slammed down her gavel, bang!

It was then time for words from a donor, Lynn Walworth, the matriarch of a family in England that lost her beloved son Rory in a mountainbike accident in 2009. Since then Lynn and her family have been raising money for Wheels 4 Life in memory of Rory, $120,000, which equals over 800 bicycles. Over a slide show with photos showing their various fundraisers and happy people receiving their bicycles, even a square in Kenya named after Rory with 100 bikes lined up in front of the “Rory Walworth Square” sign; Lynn’s voice told the story of why they chose to support Wheels 4 Life and what the results have meant to them and their supporters.

The audience was clearly moved by Lynn’s words, as was Carmen, co-founder of Wheels 4 Life. After working with Lynn for eight years, it was extremely emotional for Carmen to stand on stage looking at the slide show and listening to what Lynn said. But now it was time to rally the crowd, with a call for everyone to become warriors for Wheels 4 Life, Carmen asked the guests to trust in what Wheels 4 Life does with all donations and to believe in the simplicity of a $150 bicycle changing lives for the better; allowing people to travel four times as far, with four times the speed and carrying four times the load. A bicycle can make the difference between having an education or not, from having healthcare or not or from earning a living or not.

On the back of these words, Dawnmarie again set to the stage and looked out at the crowd, now glowing a strange shade of green as they held their illuminated glow sticks that acted as pledging wands. Our auctioneer asked that if anyone there felt like they would like to be warriors for bikes to please raise their wands and pledge for bikes. The reaction was both incredible and exciting with so many arms in the air waving their green sticks. Volunteers dashed in all directions at full speed to gather up the pledges, it was hard to keep up. The atmosphere was as electric as the smiles were huge on the faces of the guests as they joined together to buy bicycles.

Everyone was pumped; it couldn’t get any better, could it? Yes, it could. The finale of the night was our third and final band, Chevy Metal, voted best cover band in the world, lead by Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters, with Wiley Hogden and Brent Woods. Bodies merged as they jumped, bumped and swayed to the rock beat, the harder Taylor banged his drums, the more the energy grew. The electricity in the air fired the adrenaline and no one wanted the music to stop.

But alas, stop it had to.  We had a couple of new guests, two of the Sheriff’s department’s finest, they heard the music from quite a way away and had to follow the rules and investigate. With a little explaining from Hans, they were very understanding, “two more songs”, they said and so this is what we had, Chevy Metal closed it up with two last songs as the Sheriffs tapped their feet and enjoyed the music. It’s only Rock n Roll after all.

So many people gave their time both before, on and after the night, companies donated auction items, musicians gave their talent, our friends opened their home to so many guests. The planning was intense, but the night was incredible and all of it was for one reason; to raise money to buy bikes. And that we did, over $92,000, far exceeding anything we have achieved in the past.

Thanks to “Rock 4 Bikes” and the many Warriors that supported it, Wheels 4 Life will be able to purchase 1000 bicycles for projects in Guatemala, Uganda, Malawi, Nepal and Kenya.

 

Rock on!

The 8 Day-340 Mile Walking Challenge for the Rory Walworth Memorial Fund by Will Oldham.

The 8 Day-340 Mile Walking Challenge for the Rory Walworth Memorial Fund by Will Oldham.

On June 6th Will Oldham will be setting out on an 8-day challenge, covering 340 miles across the South of England and visiting all 24 schools against which he played rugby with Rory Walworth in order to raise money on behalf of the Rory Walworth Memorial Fund for Wheels 4 Life. He will be finishing at Bishop Wordsworth’s Grammar School on 13th June, where he and Rory both grew up playing rugby together in a team of incredibly close friends, all of whom have gone on to various careers around the world but most of whom have already been in touch about the event to help in one form or another.

The idea came about after discussing with a couple of friends how they could go about linking Rory’s two great passions of rugby and cycling. After some deliberation and various equally crazy ideas being thrown around they settled on the Big School Run with the hope that keeping it fairly local to Rory’s hometown would help encourage others to get involved. Even if only in the capacity of providing refreshments en route! Whilst the physical demands are clear to see, he is sure that the mental challenges will be just as tough if not more so to overcome along the way. As much training as he has done to date, the concept of putting one foot in front of the other for over 40 miles a day for over a week is still somewhat troubling!

Rory Walworth was a young man from the south of England who was tragically fatally injured whilst riding his bike. Rory’s family wanted to honour Rory’s memory with something on going, far-reaching and impactful on people’s lives. They have worked tirelessly and to date raised funds for 800 bicycles, which have been distributed in Kenya and Uganda. These bikes have both changed and saved lives. Rory’s name is known very well within the communities that received his bikes. In Kenya there is the Rory Walworth Square and in Uganda our northern district project leader has named his son Rory.

 

Here is a list of schools Will shall be visiting on the various days, hopefully seeing as many familiar faces along the way as possible:

  • Saturday 6th June – Marlborough College (Wiltshire)
  • Sunday 7th June – Churcher’s College (Hampshire), Chichester College (West Sussex), Portsmouth Grammar School (Hampshire)
  • Monday 8th June – King Edward VI School (Hampshire), Hounsdown School (Hampshire), Hampshire Collegiate School (Hampshire)
  • Tuesday 9th June – Bournemouth School (Dorset), Poole Grammar School (Dorset), Corfe Hills School (Dorset), Canford School (Dorset), Queen Elizabeth School Wimborne (Dorset)
  • Wednesday 10th June – Clayesmore School (Dorset), Sherborne School (Dorset), Millfield School (Somerset)
  • Thursday 11th June – Kings Bruton School (Somerset), Downside School (Somerset), Clifton College (Bristol)
  • Friday 12th June – Kingswood School (Somerset), Beechen Cliff School (Somerset), Sheldon School (Wiltshire)
  • Saturday 13th June – Dauntseys School (Wiltshire), Wyvern College (Wiltshire, Chafyn Grove School (Wiltshire), Bishop Wordsworth’s Grammar School (Wiltshire)

So if anyone happens to be in Salisbury, Wiltshire on Saturday 13th June then please keep an eye out around Bishop Wordsworth’s Grammar School at about 4pm!

Will Oldham’s twitter is @willoldham89 and he has a link with instagram – @willoldham89 – These will be the platforms for fairly regular training updates!