SLBC & Spartan Weekend “I will not take my own life by my own hand until I talk to my battle buddy first. My mission is to find a mission to help my warfighter family.” That is a pretty stark pledge. It is a pledge made to help stem the tide of suicides that take the lives of 22 veterans every day. It is the pledge made by each Spartan Warrior. Help us help them through The Spartan Weekend! Spartan Weekend (May 19 – 21, 2017) is a series team building activities geared to deserving veterans and sponsored by the Villagers for Veterans. The goal of the weekend is to “bring Veterans together in an effort to stop veteran suicide”. Your Sumter Landing Bicycle Club is proud to be managing the cycling team building activity. On Friday, May 19th, the typical Bradenton Ride Start is being moved to the Eisenhower Recreation Center – no more fitting location to honor the veterans. We will have a special 10-mile bike route and will encourage SLBC members to join the veterans on this special route (the veterans will be on a variety of cycles and will have different cycling abilities). The ride start time is 8:00 AM; that is the normal start time for all rides in the month of May. Mark your calendar and join us at the Eisenhower Recreation Center for this great opportunity to recognize and support our veterans. Help from SLBC members is needed for the ride; please volunteer see next page. The SLBC Board of Directors has approved a club donation of $200 to help sponsor a deserving veteran to participate in the Spartan Weekend. Bike club members may also wish to make a personal contribution to help sponsor a deserving veteran for the Spartan Weekend. Want to learn more about the Spartan Weekend? CLICK HERE to view the Spartan Weekend description. CLICK HERE to view the Spartan Weekend event information summary.
To make a personal donation to help a veteran attend the Spartan Weekend via the SLBC PayPal Account, CLICK HERE. Donations are either via PayPal or credit card. We will have a record of what our club members contributed and will then deliver one check to the Villages for Veterans organization.
We need SLBC volunteers to make this event a success:
As of April 13, we need to plan on 30 veteran riders. We may need as many as 5 ride groups with a leader and sweep for each group. We are told at some will have hand-driven trikes, some have PTSD and some may have artificial limb(s) but ride on regular bikes. We are told that many will bring their own bikes. Villagers for Veterans are getting bikes for those who are not coming with their own. All are experienced cyclists. One does not see well and usually rides with a partner and keeps in contact via a headset. We will probably assign a SLBC rider to ride next to him to be sure he gets the ride commands. The plan is to have a route the leaves and returns from/to the Eisenhower Rec center. We need ride leaders, sweeps, and some people to ride within a ride group to help others. CLICK HERE to sign up as a volunteer CLICK HERE to see who has volunteered.
Contact: Kay Carver. (
[email protected])
