Card of Thanks 14th annual Terry & Ben Claassen Memorial Northeast Kingdom Lakes Century Orleans County Citizen Advocacy’s board of directors, program director, Ellen Bowen, and coordinator, Paula Manzi, want to thank everyone involved in making this year’s bicycle tour a fun, safe, spirited fundraiser that raised over $6,000 for our non-profit. OCCA’s mission is to: build and support one-to-one independent long term relationships between unpaid community members and people with developmental disabilities; to ensure that people with disabilities are protected, heard, empowered, respected and included
This year’s 65 riders, most who tackled the full 100 mile loop. The cyclists couldn’t have been more enthusiastic about the ride! We appreciate their praise about the routes, the food, and the friendliness of the volunteers. After 14 years, many riders feel like old friends, and hopefully we made some new ones as well!
Special thanks to: our $500 sponsors: Shawn Austin Construction & Excavation, The Animal Doctor & Taplin’s. Our $250 sponsors: TD Bank, Concept 2, Columbia Forest Products, Poulin Grain and the Wildflower Inn. Our $100 sponsors: Associated Insurance Agencies, Community National Bank, Rusty’s Electric, Newport Rental Center, Barton Area Chamber of Commerce, Auto Outfitters, Village Bike Shop in Derby, Hayes Ford, H&R Block, Garden Patch, Eastside Restaurant, Green Mountain Electric Supply, Passumpsic Savings Bank, Edward Jones, Gervais Plumbing & Heating, Hoagie’s, Taylor-Moore Agency, Poulin Lumber, Kingdom Construction, Right Wheels, Louis Garneau, Tivoly, Ray’s Electric, Wild Branch Solutions and Blue Cross Blue Shield of VT. Much appreciation to Thomas Lichtenberger and Sean McCarthy of Hold Fast Designs in Hardwick who made our T-shirt happen.
The Newport Rotary Club was our major funder for the BBQ, with a number of other businesses donating food for the dinner & rest stops: C&C Supermarket, Bouyea-Fassetts, Garden Patch, Derby Village Store, Buzzy’s Beverage, Price Chopper, Shaw’s, Vista Foods, Vermont Heritage Spring Water and Circle K in Barton. A special thanks to Ann Creaven for organizing all of our food related needs and to Russ Bowen for his time manning the grill. Our thanks to all the board members & other volunteers for baking the goodies and making other food for the rest stops, also to Cleo’s Catering for the delicious meal.
13 volunteers staffed the rest stops. Thanks to: Joan Alexander, Ann Stannard, Paula Manzi and Chris Wellhoff at Crystal; Sue Ashworth and Debbie Brooks at Lyndonville; Kay Courson at Country Thyme; Ellen Bowen and Crystal Howard at Derby Line; Lisa Farney and Roberta Pheiffer at Island Pond; & Ann Creaven and Susan Guilmette at Willoughby. Many thanks to Vinnie Vanluvender & Carl Ball for all their assistance with packing up at the end. Our appreciation also goes to the providers of the rest stop spaces: The Haskell Library/Opera House, Country Thyme, Town of Willoughby for the use of the Willoughby North Beach and Bruce Grant for the use of the old Sheffield Potato Co. shed.
Thanks to Gerry Cahill and Joan Alexander painted all the directional arrows along the route; VT Transportation Agency and other towns who allowed for the important directional markings so our bikers could easily find their way around; to the on-call mechanics, Earl Whitmore and Jeff Manning; to Jeremy Edwards and Al Marin for updating the website; plus our volunteer treasurer, Steven Mengel, for all his support. We appreciated the support of Crystal State Park Ranger John Corriveau and Brighton State Park Ranger Todd Gregory, as well as the Town of Barton for allowing us to put up our event sign on the village green. The riders especially enjoy Graham Rae & Ellen Apple Rae of Derby Line who provided free massages at the event. Thanks to Cindy Stone, Connie Daigle & Pam Veroot although they could not be there sent food for others to enjoy.
We look forward to next year’s 15th Annual Ride, on the third Saturday in September, 2012.
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