Help me reach my fundraising goal to help disadvantaged children and their families in Ukraine during COVID-19!

On August 29th I will be completing my first Century Ride, cycling 160.9 KM (100 miles) from Toronto to Grafton, Ontario with the HBK Cycle Club in support of Help Us Help's COVID-19 Children’s Relief Fund!

I started cycling in the summer of 2019, while training for a Triathlon event that I completed on my 23rd birthday. Over the past year, cycling has taken me on beautiful rides from the hills of Tuscany to the coast of Lake Superior. Thankfully, cycling is one of the few activities that hasn’t been cancelled due to COVID-19, which has allowed me to stay active and social in these unprecedented times. 

Together with a group of my Ukrainian-Canadian friends, we started the HBK Cycle Club and set the goal of completing a Century Ride by the end of the summer. Help Us Help is an organization we deeply support and have worked with over the years, so we decided to make our century ride into a fundraiser. We inspired the creation of the Help Us Help Move-A-Thon, an initiative to motivate people to get active in their own way while supporting their Help Us Help program of choice. The fundraiser is set to raise over $20,000 for the organization!

DID YOU KNOW? Ukraine has among the highest numbers of institutionalized children in Europe.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and in an effort to contain the virus in Ukraine, almost 50,000 at-risk children were sent home to their biological families, who are unable to provide appropriate care to their children for a variety of reasons.

Funds raised for this initiative will provide necessary food and hygiene kits to the families affected, and support in the form of weekly visits and assessments by a social worker. It is one step towards reform in Ukraine that will focus on providing appropriate support to families, thereby allowing parents to care for their children. Find more info at https://covid19childrensrelief.ca/

Help Us Help's Move-A-Thon presents an opportunity for me to participate in a sport I love while fundraising for an important initiative. Help me raise $1,750 to provide social support, food, and hygiene kits to 12 families in need!