Charity ride rolls through Westman

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This article was published 17/07/2022 (1341 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The longest charity bike ride in the world made a stop in Brandon to take in some of the Wheat City’s hospitality and talk about cancer awareness.

Known as the Texas 4000, the group stopped at the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Hindu Temple on Friday evening for dinner and to take in the evening’s worship. They were met by volunteers from the BAPS Charities serving up Indian cuisine.

This annual ride is the longest cycling tour in North America, stretching from Austin, Texas, to Anchorage, Alaska, said team leader Gracie Hornung.

And it’s all to get communities together to fight cancer and create student leaders.

Preparations started for this tour started 18 months ago, said Hornung, with all participants volunteering and raising US$4,500 to donate to cancer research and support services. They also perform a lot of team-building activities to form a bond and train on their bikes. All of this is to prepare for the summer ride — a 4,000-mile (6,437-kilometre) ride through the United States and Canada.

Along the way, they stop to talk to communities to engage them in fighting cancer by spreading hope, knowledge and charity. To get to their destination, they have to rely on the charity of others.

Much of that is cold-calling communities where they will be stopping. They have had no problem getting people to help them.

“One of the best parts of this journey is getting to meet people along the way,” Hornung said. “Whether it be at a gas station or someone who is hosting us that works at the YMCA we stay at. Someone hears about what we are doing while standing in line and buys a couple of bags of ice for us and says ‘My parent, friend or myself have had some sort of experience with cancer and what you are doing is really incredible.’

“Little experiences like that make it very rewarding.”

To get to Alaska, the team has their own equipment trailer, and support van team members take turns driving and going ahead to set up rest stops. They also take turns organizing where the team will stop for the night and even events they can attend.

It has also been a journey of personal discovery. Hornung said she has found she likes to look around at the environment while she is cycling. On the way into Brandon, the team cycled over the Assiniboine River, which she called breathtakingly beautiful. She was hoping to do a sightseeing tour of the city before heading back to the team’s camp.

Their next stop was Moosomin, Sask., where the team was scheduled to take in a rodeo.

“Being from Texas, I’m interested in seeing what a Canadian rodeo looks like,” Hornung said. “We should be wearing our cowboy boots for this.”

The whole idea of the program, according to the group’s website, is to create a generation of philanthropists and volunteers and share charity through cancer research. The idea of charity and volunteering creating a better world is shared by the BAPS temple, and the congregation was happy to lend a hand, said assembly co-ordinator Deep Patel.

The temple opened on July 1 and BAPS Charities knew the cyclists were coming, Patel said. Superiors in other communities passed along the news they would be stopping in the city. Temple members also saw the team’s ads asking for assistance and had no problem organizing a dinner and social event.

“BAPS Charities does a lot of work in health and social care as part of the bigger picture of all the services that we do,” Patel said. “We organize walk-a-thons and other services because in the mandate of our guru, he said in the joy of others lies our own. Because of that, we are doing this to help people.”

People can follow the progress of the Texas 4000 on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, and donate, read their stories and even buy merchandise online at texas4000.org.

» kmckinley@brandonsun.com

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