2014 ALR Charity Run

I picked up the bike on Saturday, courtesy of Greg's limosine service.  The bike has more than enough power to spare, but it could still use a little tweaking on the sound.  I need to deepen the grown a little bit, and will tackle that sometime this summer.  I'm just not sure how much tampering I can do before I'll need to reprogram the power commander.

Anyway - I had the bike back and life was good.  Yes, there was another glitch at the dealership but I'm choosing to believe it was an innocent mistake, and will say no more about it.

Saturday, my ALR chapter put on a charity run to raise funds for two awesome causes; the Olivia Foundation, and Hero Stars of Cape Cod.

The Olivia Foundation is named for a young girl who was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia and has been displaying an enormous amount of strength and positiveness throughout the whole ordeal she's going through.  Fortunately, she was having a good day on Saturday and was able to come visit us for a short time and it was so awesome to see her playing with her siblings and friends.

Hero Stars is a startup enterprise (not even an official "company"), started by a Vietnam Veteran who wanted to show his appreciation for those that made the ultimate sacrifice for our country's freedom.  He fashions stars out of solid pieces of granite, sometimes painting them, other times; not.  I was talking with him and he fashions these pieces of art with a table saw...and a grinder!  In fact, most of his work is done with a grinder.  If you saw his finished items, you'd be amazed at his talent!

The day was forecast as sunny and beautiful, and the weather folks actually came through for us in a big way - high 70's, sunshine, low humidity - perfect!

No sooner had we gotten the parking lot set up than the bikes began arriving.  Before long, we had an almost full lot - fantastic!  The registration lines were long, the raffles sales were soaring (we had three tables, all jam packed with awesome items!), and things were shaping up nicely.

We had a pre-run pow-wow with the Sharon officer who'd be escorting us, then we made our announcements to the crowds, and then Kevin (our Chaplain) performed a blessing of the bikes for us.  He said afterward that he'd been a little nervous - it was his first time, but he did a fantastic job!

With that - we were off!

The run went almost flawlessly.  I say "almost" because one of our Road Captains spaced out when it came time to make one of the last turns of the run.  It wasn't a big deal.  A quick adjustment and we were soon back on track and then rolling back into the Post's parking lot - greeted with cheers and applause from those who were waiting for us.  (It was still funny, though, and our Road Captain will have to endure some jabs at our next meeting.)

From there, the food lines filled up and food was handed out as fast as we could get it out to the tables.  More raffle ticket sales, 50/50 sales, the DJ was cranking the tunes...this was really a great day!

After the food lines had petered out and folks had filled their bellies, we announced the two charities/organizations we were there for that day.  Olivia's mother came up and spoke to the crowd, thanking and blessing us all.  Then it was Bill's turn; and he had arranged for three Gold Star Mothers to join us today, and he presented each of them with one of his Hero Stars.  (For those that don't know; a Gold Star Mother is one who has lost a child in combat.)  That was a very emotional experience to see those mothers up there!

After a bit of a break, the DJ turned the tunes down a bit and it was time to announce the raffle winners.  Once again, I had bought only losing tickets, but that's ok.  It was money very well spent.

Lastly, it was time to announce the day's take.  We'd raised $1,900!  This meant $950 for each charity!  Not too shabby at all for a group of guys who are just starting to get the hang of this charity event thing.

When we announced the amount that each charity would get, I happened to be looking at Bill's face (Hero Stars) and I saw the look of surprise and amazement cross his face.  He later told us that with that money, he can go out and buy a complete pallet of granite, as well as more diamond pads/blades, and create stones for about 60 more families.  How amazing is that!

Olivia's father came up to us later and couldn't thank us enough.  I can't even imagine the tremendous toll this process has had on their whole family, so it was such a great feeling that we'd been able to help bring a good day to them.

As the day wore into the afternoon, and then into the early evening, folks began to disperse - just as with all runs.  The food had been cleaned up, the parking lot all but cleared, and the DJ had broken camp and headed for home.

What a fantastic day it had been.  Perfect weather, a great turnout, plenty of food, great music, and helping out two very worthwhile causes.  How can you top that?

I'm not sure, but we're going to try like hell at our next one...