"Faith, Hope and Charity have been called the 3 steps of Jacob's Ladder, reaching from earth to heaven, Faith is the ground floor, Hope is part of the stairs... the best room in the house at the top is charity."
Benjamin Franklin
April 18th, 2013.
Our family has been the recipient of charity many times and we do our best to give whatever we can to help make this world a better place for everyone to live. Not long ago our house was painted, yard was cleaned up, a part of our floor was repaired and several other things were repaired in our house. This was done through a program at Heritage Church in Moultrie, Georgia called Mega Impact. Yes it did have a Mega Impact on our family and we will always be grateful to the many people that made it happen. I would love to mention everyone of the people involved but he list is exhaustive to say the least. There were 120 plus students from Tennessee that came down to participate, there were sponsors, donors and other volunteers that also participated. It was a joint effort of church an community and showed what people can do if they are willing to try.
The projects included in Mega Impact included 7 wheelchair ramps, roofs on houses, lots of painting and yard work, at least one handicapped bathroom installed and a whole lot of fellowship going on too. The students that worked on our house were absolutely wonderful. They did good work but were also very personable and really seemed interested in our family especially our 2 handicapped sons.
Over the years we have also helped with numerous charitable causes. I love bicycles and have for years. I got back into cycling as way to rehabilitate a messed up knee after an injury while in the military. I was injured playing softball in GTMO Cuba while our ship was doing refresher training back in the 70's , and during the recovery period I found that cycling helped my knee. After my discharge from the Navy in 1976 I sort of got away from cycling for a while. Ruth and I did keep doing some charity work like a walk for the March of Di,mes and such as that before we left Ohio.
Bicycles and charity have now become a common combination for us. In 1995 we moved to Georgia, and transferred my National Guard affiliation from the Kansas Artillery to the Georgia Mechanized Infantry. It was about then that I realized that cycling was a way to stay fit as well as help others and our family has been doing that through numerous rides and events since then.
In 1997 B-100 Radio started a program through Toys for Tots called Bikes or Bust. Through this program a DJ and a Marine were raised in an RV 100 feet above the Wal Mart Parking lot in Albany. They were to stay up there until 100 bikes were donated by listeners or 100 hours whichever came first, The first year as I recall "Mustang" Mike Kelly went up with a Marine Corporal, at 4 hours there were 100 bikes on the ground under the RV. Mustang would then say that they were not coming down but they would stay up the entire 100 hours and get as many bikes for the children as they could rather than stop at the 100. We donated a little money that year, but I wanted to do more.
Over the next year I did some extra training and even joined a cycling club in Albany (Pecan City Pedalers, "Nuts on wheels") I spoke with the radio people who at that time was Ray Fox and Dottie Davis and set up a program where i would ride around 50 miles per day for 3 days totally 150 miles and have people sponsor me on a per mile basis, I would ride in to Albany on the 3rd day and give the money raised to the Marines. I set the goal at 1000.00. On the second day I had about 500.00 collected and the Albany Herald ran a front page full color picture of me on my bike telling about the plan. I heard Dottie and Ray talking about it on the morning show and it was all set. Three days later I would ride into Albany Georgia and meet Ray and Dottie and numerous Marine reservists to give them an envelope filled with cash, checks and pledges from businesses for slightly more than 1000.00. On Friday Morning I stopped at Baptist Hospital of Worth County where I was employed and was greeted by the administrator Billy Hayes. Mr Hayes asked how far I was from the goal, and I told him that I was about 200.00 short, so he donated the difference through he hospital.
I did the ride for the bikes every year until 2002 when they stopped doing that particular ride due to expenses of getting the RV, cranes and gasoline etc, so I found other rides and such to do for charity.
In 2000 I did my first Century ride which raised 1125.00 for Cystic Fibrosis. There were also many other charity rides like the Horrible Hundred in Orlando Florida, The Myrtle Beach Marathon in Myrtle Beach SC, Biking Bleckley in Cochran Georgia, and numerous others. In 2009 I became the event director for Caroline's Ride 2009 which was set up to help a friend with the expenses associated with his 5 year old daughter's disease, Neurofibromastosis. In 2010 Bret Wagenhorst started the Tour de Tifton and asked for some help, we had just started our little bike shop in Moultrie. For the past 4 years I have provided the mechanical SAG for the Tour as well as doing other charity rides whenever possible.
We are working on setting up an Honor Ride for wounded veterans here in Southwest Georgia hopefully in September of this year. The money from this ride would go o R2R (Ride to Recovery) to help wounded heros coming back from any war. I will do several other charity rides in addition to this.
Another Charity program that I have developed is through the recycling of bicycles. I take old bikes that are discarded or sold really cheap and I repair them into usable bikes then donate them to either individuals or groups that distribute them So far I have repaired and donated a total of 6 bikes as well as repaired one for a young man staying at the mission in Moultrie. I am looking for donations of bikes and parts that may be usable and for places to donate these bikes too once they are ready. Funds are limited so can't do a lot of donations at this point, but will do my best to help out anyone that asks.
If you by any chance have any bicycles or bicycle parts that you don't need or want, please drop them off here or give me a call so I can pick them up. If you are out of town then call and we will see if we can make arrangements to pick them up or get them shipped.
I have also been working with Empower Network to help me raise funds so that I can make the bicycle charity program more productive. You may need money for a charity, for your own expenses or just to pay bills, if so you should check out Empower Network.
I just heard from a good source that if you race BMX then you should check out Peachtree City BMX this weekend. We won't be able to make it, but Anthony and Shane always have great events and it is a really nice track. Race for Life on Saturday, State Qualifier Sunday. 2 races in 2 days, can really get some points built up quickly.
For more info on me click here
For answers to questions on cycling click here
For answers to questions on Fitness click here
For a program that is automatic and pays 100% Commissions click here
For Heritage Church Click here
Have a great day
Jerry
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