Aiming to raise $80,000 for Wellspring
BY SAMUEL PICCOLO The VOICE
The Fonthill Rotary Club is in the midst of planning for its second Tour-du-Lac cycling trip, a July event with riders circling all of Lake Ontario while raising money for Wellspring Niagara’s new Pelham headquarters. Wellspring provides cancer support services, and is responsible for obtaining all of its own funding.
“We started by giving five thousand dollars to Wellspring from what we raised at Mudfest a few years ago,” said ride organizer, Wellspring board member, and Rotarian Frank Adamson. “Then I heard that Larry Boggio of Boggio’s pharmacy was organizing a ride from Toronto to Miami to support Wellspring, and I wanted to get involved.”
Adamson, who was a paramedic for 39 years, owns Kwikfit in Fonthill, and has run seven marathons, was not previously a cyclist.
“[Wellspring Niagara executive director] Ann Mantini told me that if I could run marathons, I could probably ride a bike for six hours at a time,” said Adamson.
While the ride to Miami was done in shifts, with groups of cyclists riding for six hours, then taking a van ahead to await their next turn, during last year’s Tour-du-Lac the nine riders completed the whole thing.
“It was over nine hundred kilometres, and it took seven days,” said Adamson. “The hard part was riding the whole thing, but the good part was getting to sleep every night. When we went to Miami we had to try and sleep in the van, and then wake up at four in the morning for our next shift.”
This year’s ride, however, will be like the one to Miami.
“Last year we had so many people say that they would like to do it with us, but that it would take too long,” said Adamson. “Luchetta Homes helped us out—and Rob Luchetta rode to Hamilton with us. He said that if it were a three-day weekend he could do it, but that he just couldn’t take a whole week off.”
Adamson said that the plan is for the group to stop in Kingston together, where a local Rotary group will host them, and then all of the cyclists will take the ferry over to the United States before starting home on the south side of Lake Ontario.
This year’s ride will run from July 20 to 22, and Adamson is hoping that 24 people will take part to make four groups of six riders.
“We have eighteen signed up right now, so we’d like to have a few more,” he said.
Each rider doing the three-day circuit is tasked with raising a minimum of $3000. Those doing the one-day ride—from somewhere in New York to the finish—will raise $500. All told, Adamson said that the goal this year is $80,000.
“If we don’t get any more cyclists, we’ll make it work. The ones riding will just raise a little bit more,” he said.
The $80,000 is part of Rotary’s aim to contribute a total of $250,000 to Wellspring. The organization’s goal for its new Pelham headquarters is $5 million dollars. Last year’s ride raised $90,000.
“We want to have $80,000 this year, and $80,000 next year. That would put us at $250,000, plus the $30,000 from the Miami ride,” said Adamson. “Wellspring is such a great organization, and it’s providing a service that no one else offers.”
