Two South West Rotary members are riding 1000km to raise $20,000 for Solaris Cancer Care and Lift the Lid on Mental Health.
Having set off on Thursday, Bunbury Rotary Club members Tony Critchley and Dave Castro left from Bunbury and will be making their way to Busselton, Margaret River, Manjimup, Albany, Arthur River, Darkan and then back down to Collie.
Mr Critchley’s daughter Sonya was diagnosed with breast cancer last year and he said he is riding for her, members of the Rotary club who have been diagnosed with cancer and those volunteers who provide the pre- and after care.
“We have taken my daughter to chemotherapy and Solaris Cancer Care, you meet so many people there who are volunteers and it’s just a very caring place and in Rotary we have had a few people who have been diagnosed with cancer and what I thought would be a great idea would be to do the ride for the pre and after care,” Mr Critchley said.
Mr Castro is also joining in on the ride and hopes that this will be the start of an annually Rotary ride and by the end of the 14 days they have raised near their set target.
“Tony made the decision. He didn’t over think it. He decided to set it up and I just felt like he probably needed a bit of support, it’s a big thing to tackle completely on your own and I had been wanting to do quite a long ride sort of round this time this year and I thought what a great opportunity to support him, do something useful and set the foundation for our Rotary Club to do this annually,” Mr Castro said.
“In 14 days time we will end up back in Bunbury hopefully having done 1000kms and hopefully having visited many of our colleagues in the Rotary clubs in the South West and hopefully nearing our target in terms of our fundraising.”
He said he decided to jump on board because he has had family and friends suffer from mental health issues and cancer.
“I have some family that have some ongoing mental health issues and certainly I’ve had family as well who have been diagnosed with cancer and gone through that process. These aftercare support organisations are so important.”
You can donate for the ride at www.gofundme.com/1000km-bicycle-ride-for-charity
