Every year over 10,000 Albertans access Emergency Shelters.
Women, children and seniors that experience abuse are too often turned away from shelters for a lack of space. When that happens, the case workers take that experience home with them and it destroys these helpers as they feel helpless. The Ride for Mom is all about changing the dialogue about domestic abuse and of course raising much needed funds and awareness.
It is important that these shelters get more funds, and I think it is essential that the Ride for Mom grows across the country until one day, shelters and this kind of awareness and financial support is no longer needed.Krysta Shields, the ride's founder, wants to urge people who would like to start a Ride for Mom in their area to reach out.
As was said earlier, the Ride for Mom is all about changing the dialogue around Domestic Abuse across Canada and your votes are needed.
You can reach Krysta at: krysta@blackjacksroadhouse.com
In the about line of your email put: -"We'd like to be a Ride For Mom Community!"I spoke with a number of the Edmonton area riders about this event and what they thought of it.
Rob Truscott who is a member of the military and has attended a number of events summed up what everyone else had to say: "This is one of the better rides I have ever been on. Water at every stop, the Sheriffs and regional police departments blocking intersections to ensure everyone gets safely through. What more can a person ask for?"
Well how about a blocked off street in Tofield and Sheriffs with a sense of humour?
In all this ride is comprised of three stops and at each stop you get a numbered ticket that gets you a chance on one of the big basket giveaways filled with prizes:
1) Reynolds Alberta Museum in Wetaskiwin.
2) Camrose Alberta, this year was at the House of Thunder.
3) The Tofield stop last year was at Town Hall and Library, this year at the Moonshine Cafe and the whole block was cordoned off for us!
Everything went smoothly as there were lots of signs guiding us all as to which way to go and in many cases there was also a Sheriff or a police officer to ask. The chase truck and trailer had to pick up one rider with a flat tire, but other than that, it was smooth riding.In year 2 the event saw 160 motorcycles come out!
Mother Nature - THANK YOU for cooperating!
$20,000 was raised and ALL OF THAT money, thanks to the hard fundraising work by Krysta Shields, will go to the cause directly.
It was a safe, well run event on the roadways thanks to Kevin O'Connor of the Wetaskiwin office of the Alberta Sheriffs who also happens to sit on the Ride for Mom Board. Because of his participation, his "brothers" stepped up to help this worthy cause and they dod so with a great sense of humour and community.Tyler Grant who does the in-house photography and media collection and dissemination for Blackjacks Roadhouse and does a good job of keeping their social media rocking and he was busting his butt behind his camera.
Various groups have decided to make this event a mandatory event for their membership to attend, the Guardians of the Children are one such group and I interviewed Clint AKA Dragon about what this event means to their club and as suspected it's message and cause dovetails with the help to children in distress that the Guardians offer.
The sponsors that came on board this year were incredible:
ATB Financial, Klondike Insurance Agencies, Pratts Food Service, Harley-Davidson of Edmonton, CTV, Heritage Harley-Davidson, Reynolds-Alberta Museum, Town of Tofield, Airways Country Inn, Peace Hills Insurance,
Battle River Landscape Supply and Design, Wetaskiwin Coop, Alberta Sheriffs, Victim Services Camrose, Alberta Cycle, House of
Thunder Camrose, Moonshine Cafe Tofield.
I was so honoured to again support this event.
On a personal note....
I got pretty emotional when we could not get connected to the internet to do the interviews for Live TV. We did, sort of finally get me connected but on the phone and the stream went live after we were done - I have discovered how stressful a live event can be when you are at an event and on really tight time frames and no crew to help you when things don't go right.
I am afraid my stress cracks were showing a tad as I almost had to pack up and go do interviews for regular TV and forget about the live event totally.
Manon, a Blackjack's Roadhouse employee (who is also my friend) who was doing everything she could to help me get connected and kept reassuring me it would be OK and thanks to her help, it was.
Manon, you are an angel.
While the Live TV did not go exactly as planned, it did finally get done and that set the rest of the day up to be a great one.
The rider was AMAZING.
I got some great ride footage, some incredible interviews and am looking forward to editing the video for "Ride Like a Local" Season 6 on EastLink TV & on YouTube!
Next year's Ride for Mom team will be starting planning for 2019 soon!
Visit rideformom.ca to volunteer or perhaps start your own Ride for Mom in your community.
If you are blessed to be riding today, please remember to ride like everyone around you is blind and cannot see you!
Belt Drive Betty
Editor & Rider
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