Donate

I will admit that I am doing this ride primarily for a selfish reason – I just want to do it. However, I also want to make it more than just a check mark on my bucket list. To that end, I am using this ride as a means to promote youth mentoring. Please consider supporting my goal in any or all of three ways:

1. Awareness. In any community there are more youth in need of a mentor than there are people who have volunteered to mentor them. Mentored youth are more likely to finish school, avoid drugs, go on to college, and generally become productive members of society. Both the mentored and the mentor get much more out of the relationship than they expected. Please let others know about my ride and purpose – to raise awareness of the benefits of mentoring. Which leads me to …

2. Encourage volunteers. Now that you know about the need, maybe you know someone who would make a good mentor. Maybe you are now in a point in your life where you might consider it yourself. Maybe you know a friend, an adult son, daughter, niece, nephew, or other family member that would make a great role model and guide to a young person in need of direction. In nearly every town and community where I will be traveling, there are organizations that have made it their mission to helping youth in their journey to adulthood. Even if you don’t think you are the mentoring type, maybe you have some other skills that could be put to use.

3. Monetary donations. Come on, you knew it was coming! I’m not going to make that tired, old “for the cost of your daily cup of coffee…” argument. I’m going with this:

Did you know that it takes about $1,550 per year to fund a single mentor to a child for a year? A dollar per mile for my trip would more than cover that! I’m riding a little under 2,000 miles. Why not give* a penny a mile? That works out to just $20 for my entire ride! For those engineers and anyone else into the metric system, how about one cent per kilometer? That works out to a little more than $32, but why not go for $35 or even $50 for the entire ride. I hope there are plenty of people out there that could afford a lot more and I would be happy to see you be more generous.

I am self funding the cost of the ride. I’d like you to give directly to the organizations in your own community. I have links for some of the organizations I have found along my route here: https://thelonerider.bike/mentoring-organizations/ . If you can’t find one that is in your community, I would encourage you to make a donation to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Washington. You can go to https://www.swwabigs.org/donate/ or directly to their secure site at: https://commerce.ayt360.org/Compass360WebPortals/eCommerce/org=swwabigs.org/request=donations/ . If you wouldn’t mind, please let them know that you are making this donation because you found out about it through my adventure (you can check “dedication”) . Or drop me a message via the contact link on this website or Facebook [facebook.com/TheLoneRider2016] to let me know you are helping in some way in your own back yard.  Any and all contributions of spreading the word, encouragement, and/or dollars are greatly appreciated. Thanks for your support!

The Lone Rider

*Nobody needs your pledges, we need your money, your time, and commitment. ;-)