Get your motor running for kids

Motorcycle riders show their heart with fundraiser/parade

Kause for Kids
Saturday, November 3
Gables, Grand Bend
10 a.m. – staging
12 p.m. – parade
Admission:
New unwrapped toy plus $20, or $75 in pledges
Tickets available at Colonial and Peckitt’s Mens’ Wear
Entertainment by Hotel California, tribute to the Eagles

“We think there’s a need to level the playing field for special needs kids,” says Nelson Desjardine, founder and committee member of the Kause for Kids. The event is a fundraiser operated by Ontario’s West Coast Riders in conjunction with the Grand Bend Optimist club.
The annual motorcycle parade through Grand Bend and subsequent lunch and party is always a sell-out, and if you’re interested in taking part, you should register soon.
“It’s been a great response,” Desjardine says. “Since year one, the tickets have sold out. We couldn’t do it without the community. They know what we’re all about. It’s about kids with special needs.”
Even if you can’t take part in the ride, you can still participate.
“We expect to sell out and the overflow will go to the Colonial. People can come out to the parade and donate toys at the parade. Bikes will be decorated in a Christmas theme. We’ll have quite a few spectators along the parade route. It’s just like a Santa Claus parade but with motorcycles.”
Hopefully the weather will continue to cooperate, which it has for the last five years. Last year, the event raised $33,313, which was given to the Grand Bend Optimist Club for distribution to various children’s charities (a full list is available at . Some of the funds raised at the event have been earmarked for a special needs project at the Grand Bend beach. Twelve hundred toys were received and distributed to needy children in the area.

Here are some of the charities benefitting from the Kause for Kids:
Thames Valley Children’s Centre, Sunshine Dreams for Kids, Spinabifida & Hydrocephalus Association of Ontario, War Amps Champ Program, Make a Wish Foundation, Camp Trillium, Huron United Way, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Sari Therapeutic Riding, Alexander MacKenzie Secondary School for Special Needs Students, Community Living Sarnia – Lambton Summer Respite Program, Foundation Huron, Grand Bend Optimists (Beach Project – Special Needs), Children’s Health Foundation, Bruce Shriners for Shriners Hospitals, Mocha Motor Corps for the Shriners Hospital Ride, Ride for Sight, Childhood Cancer Foundation/Childhood Cancer Research Fund, Baby steps walk for NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit St. Joseph’s Hospital, London)