Just waiting on a few followup points from Steve to add at the bottom.. otherwise good to go.

When Rachel DeBon heard about Vino Velo’s cycle for a cause last Thursday afternoon at the community centre, she said she knew she had to challenge herself and try it out.

The four-hour drop in virtual indoor spin class was planned by Steve Irwin from Vino Velo in partnership with Palliative Care. The goal was to raise money for the organization. With a $15 suggested donation, five participants came in throughout the day to virtually cycle through eight different Bavarian towns, they rode cross-country through Cotswold, England, and traversed through Colorado, all without leaving the community centre.

On Thursday afternoon, DeBon went above and beyond. She said she saw a comment on a Facebook post, which alerted her of the event, by someone who planned to ride the whole four hours.

“I wanted to challenge myself to see if I could do the whole four hours too,” she said.

Irwin was impressed with 22-year-old DeBon’s stamina and pledged to match $1 for every kilometre she virtually rode; she travelled 100 kilometres.

Irwin said $250 was raised for Palliative Care – $120 came in through donations and Irwin said the company topped up the rest.

More than the money for Palliative Care, which Irwin said he was happy to raise on Thursday, the fundraiser sparked a new initiative from the team at Vino Velo.

“Something really neat came out of this; we’ve created an ongoing program from this,” Irwin said.

Though he said the details are still being sorted, he intends to create a model for a fundraising activity that businesses and organizations can use for their own charitable goals.

“What we came up with is a program called 100 Kilometres of Helping,” he said.

The program was modelled after the drop-in indoor cycling event held on Thursday.

“It’s a fundraising activity that any business or organization can do,” he said. “Essentially, it’s a dollar a kilometre. You can pledge yourself $10 and ride for 10-kilometres. You can do 25 kilometres.”

Irwin said information about the new initiative can be found ________ and he plans to start it ________.