For the fifth consecutive year, Team Samaritan House will be part of Ride the Rockies, which this year starts in Grand Junction on June 13 and ends June 20 in Westcliffe.
We have 19 riders registered on the team—16 men and three women—with a goal of raising $5,000 a piece for Catholic Charities homeless shelters in northern Colorado. That includes Samaritan House and Father Ed Judy House in Denver, The Mission in Fort Collins and the Guadalupe Community Center in Greeley.
When you get on a bike to ride 465 miles to raise money for the poor, every pedal that you push reminds you of a plight much worse than your own. It puts you in a position to really appreciate how hard it must be to live as a homeless person, without income, without a place to live.
I encourage you to become part of the team. Here’s how. Go to ccdenver.org/rtr to see the route and pick a rider to support. We’ll be posting updates there, and on social media sites throughout the week of the race. Please consider a donation of $465, one dollar for every mile. Any amount donated is appreciated and 100 percent of the money donated goes to provide shelter and to help homeless people regain their sense of dignity and self-reliance.
This is one of our major fundraising efforts for our homeless shelters and the money raised goes far. Every $1.60 raised allows us to provide a meal to a person in need. Last year, about 430,000 meals were served through Catholic Charities shelters.
It’s humbling for the Team Samaritan House riders to know that while we’re experiencing God’s beauty and creation—albeit from a very sore saddle and aching legs—we’re doing it for people living a life on the streets that many of us can’t comprehend. Ride the Rockies allows us to put 100 percent of our mental and physical effort to raising money for our homeless shelters and to provide food for our less fortunate brothers and sisters.
Because we wear the Team Samaritan House jerseys, with the Catholic Charities emblem, whenever we come across a rider who has a flat tire, or a broken bike, or is struggling on the roadside, we always slow down and ask what kind of help we can offer. And if anything is needed, we stop. It may be giving them a protein bar or a bottle of water or changing a tire.
That service is a small reminder to us that we’re here to help one another, however we can. And there’s nothing more important than helping Catholic Charities show the kindness, mercy and compassion of Jesus Christ through our shelter services. You can help. You can join us in saying that homeless people matter. Go to ccdenver.org/rtr and become part of the team.
