A Look Back on the Past Year: LTU Charity Bike Ride

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DarcySW
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4 years 5 months ago - 4 years 5 months ago #152 by DarcySW

A Look Back on the Past Year: LTU Charity Bike Ride was created by DarcySW

As we enter November and begin preparing for the end of the year, we would like to look back on 2019 and share a few good news stories. Our first is about a charity bike ride that one our patients helped to organise in March:

One of our patients currently waiting for a liver transplant, Matt Sarkies, arranged a charity motorbike ride which was held on Sunday 3rd of March in collaboration with Wall Street Kustoms (custom motorcycle specialists). The owner of Wall Street Custums, Dave, reached out to Matt when he was hospitalised. Dave wanted to offer his support and initiated the charity motorcycle ride after recently completing some custom work on Matt’s precious Harley Davidson.

Matt’s mum Pam is a volunteer at DonateLife – this meant that they were able to get great advertising and publicity materials for the day. Before the ride started, Pam spoke to everyone about organ donation and thanked them all for attending.

Money was raised through the generosity of the bike riders who all paid to come on the ride, plus a raffle which was put together by many generous people who donated items. At the pub after the ride, before they drew the raffle, Matt and his partner Kate (a transplant recipient herself in 1998) spoke to everyone and shared their health stories and also the importance of organ donation. People were amazed to hear that Kate had her transplant 21 years ago and that now Matt is on the waiting list for his.

It was a great day with about fifty plus riders. In total, $1,750 was raised and donated to the LTU.

We would love to hear from other patients and family members who have organised or participated in similar events!