It started in 2004 as a public relations boon for a Social Security Board that was recovering from multiple public black eyes. But over the years the Ride Across Belize has come into its own – and is respected and recognized as one of the most high profile fundraising events on the calendar. The 2009 ride started this morning in Corozal – and after five hours on the road – we were there to greet the riders in Belize City.
Jacqueline Godwin Reporting,
The riders may have been exhausted and their feet weary after pedalling eighty eight miles from Corozal Town to Belize City but they remain even more determined to continue on the SSB Ride across Belize.
Giovanni Alamilla, Participant - Ride across Belize
“Well they are doing it for a worthy cause and it just something for us to do, raise money fro the different charities.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
How challenging was it for the group?
Giovanni Alamilla,
“Very, because of the heat, the distance. We came down with a fairly good pace, a little faster than last year so it was very challenging.”
Chandra Nisbet Cansino, Veteran, Ride Across Belize
“For the cause and for the incentive to work out and exercise but
mainly for the cause.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
What was it like, that ride from Corozal to Belize City?
Chandra Nisbet Cansino,
“It was not as bad as we thought, it was hot but it is cloudy so we had a little bit of cloud cover and pretty much everybody kept up with the pace. We had to slow down the riders every now and then but it was a good day.”
Close to fifty riders took part in the first leg of the three day event. Among the participants were some well known personalities from the media and the government.
Jacqueline Godwin,
It is your first participation in this ride why?
Janelle Chanona, Participant
“Jackie it is just something I always wanted to do and then this year when I fond out they are riding in support of cancer I said okay no excuses, my schedule is a lot more flexible right now and I said I really want to make the commitment. I was terrified of being in the heat this long, 5 hours, but thank goodness I survived and hopefully I am back in there tomorrow.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
What was the group participation like, everybody supported each other?
Janelle Chanona,
“Oh definetly gial, noh mind some of the guys were trying to give the girls showers and they picked the wrong bottle so you ended with a mouthful of Gatorade instead of water but everybody is really really helpful. You know every time the pace goes too fast…there is really some camaraderie there.”
Hon. Edmund Castro, Participant
“Last year was my first and this year I remember one of my good friends Verna who is now suffering from lung cancer and so every time I was there pedalling and I felt like to giving up, today it was very tough, I was actually in a race not just a ride and there was couple times I wanted to quit and get out and I remembered Verna and I said I will do this for her.”
The ride is to raise some much needed funds for the Belize Cancer Society, the Belize Nursing Association and the Belize Blood Donor Association that all today received token donations during a short ceremony.
Laura Longsworth, V.P. – Belize Cancer Society
“We absolutely need the money cause we depend on fundraising. We get a small subvention from government of Belize to keep the office open but everything else is run on fundraising basis and so this is absolutely a wonderful opportunity for us to focus on community education, developing our brochures, developing some videos with cancer survivors and so on for the community, educating nurses, and looking at their college training in terms of their curriculum and also looking care. So we are extremely delighted.”
Lydia Blake, President – Nurses Association
“We want to do a resource center where we have computer. We are members of various organizations that we receive monthly subscriptions of magazines and thing but the nurses don’t have nowhere that they can go so we are creating a library, it will be a conference room whenever we want to meet, and also do a in service education room which will have a practical room set up where we have a cadre of nurses that have retired that are still functioning and are working outside in the private sectors or in private institutions that are not nursing but are willing to come onboard to help the student nurses or the nurses in the ward to relinquish or rejuvenate with their practices of nursing and that is why we wanted a bigger area.”
Merlene Martinez, CEO – SSB
“We believe Social Security as a very responsible corporate citizen, these are the kids of initiatives that we would want to support and so the board has supported it all these years. Staff support has been tremendous and it always is and they get real excited, I get really excited, and so I think as much as the board supports financially, the staff support with all the effort, with all the contributions of the time and everything.”
Since SSB initiated Ride cross Belize six years ago it has been well received and not without some surprises.
Chandra Nisbet Cansino,
“What surprises us is the participation because we have a lot of non cyclists that participate and I think it is because it is not a race, it is a ride and so we try to keep it a pace where everybody can participate. So the more people that can participate, like you Jackie, maybe you participate next year since you are exercising, so yes it improves every year with participation.”
We won’t know how much funds were raised until the Ride across Belize finishes on Saturday. The money will then be shared among the three recipients Belize Cancer Society, the Belize Nursing Association and the Belize Blood Donor Association. The second leg of Ride across Belize starts tomorrow morning at six that is when the riders will pedal from Belize City to San Ignacio. Then Saturday the third leg of the journey takes the riders from San Ignacio to Dangriga.
