Riders from the United Kingdom and the USA will be leaving their New Year festivities behind and travelling to Karnataka in Southern India on 1st January to take part in the now biannual Cycle India bike ride to raise money for Heal.
At present there are 22 people from the UK, and 8 people from the USA taking part. With those joining Heal from India there should be around 35 people cycling for this worthwhile cause.
All the cyclists taking part are currently working hard, both training for the event and fundraising for the charity. The reward for all this effort is cycling through the beautiful scenery of the Coorg, and afterwards visiting the Heal Children’s Village in Guntur to meet the children, which is really the highlight of the trip and the thing that makes it all worthwhile. We have enjoyed excellent support but there is no limit: the more money that is given means more kids are helped – it all goes to the children because Heal is run by volunteers.
We have already received interest from the media in India with one of the cyclists, Jeremy King’s fundraising activities being noticed. Jeremy, a sports journalist from Wales, has been auctioning various sporting memorabilia and even an Anthony Hopkins original pencil sketch on eBay.
Closer to home Jeremy’s efforts were featured in the South Wales Echo as Cardiff City footballer Michael Chopra, who is of Indian descent, donated a signed match-shirt and this raised £222 for Heal.
Laura Roberts and Carly Gilchrist have also been working hard with various fundraising activities, such as street collecting in Sheffield, a jewelry sale, a raffle, non uniform days at a couple of schools, and putting posters up around their local area to promote the ride:
Dean Hunt, an internet marketing expert, has been combining training, fundraising and providing internet marketing all at the same time by filming himself live, and live streaming to an audience of online viewers. Here’s a recording of the event:
Heal would like to thank all those taking part in Cycle India for all their hard work both fundraising and training for our second Cycle India event. We will be updating the Heal news section with updates about Cycle India, and we are even planning a web TV channel, so please stay tuned for more information.
Thank You.