PEORIA, Ill. – It’s never happened in 18 years, but the route for this year’s St. Jude Rides is being altered.
“We are going to be cutting it short tomorrow (Thursday), because of the hurricane coming in. There are a lot of issues, but the main thing is safety of course, with 60 mile per hour winds…and when you’ve got 200 motorcycles riding that close together, it can be very dangerous,” Stann Weibler with Walters Brothers Harley Davidson says.
Weibler says the riders will still leave around 7 a.m. Thursday, headed for Centralia…where they’ll make their check presentation for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.
Midwest Communications’ Mike Stechman, Morning Host on 104.9 The Wolf in Peoria, is going on the ride with his wife Holly for the first time.
“We can’t make it to Memphis because of Mother Nature, Hurricane , but we’re going to Centralia (Illinois). We’ll make a check presentation and meet up with other folks (riders) there,” Stechman says.
Peoria’s riders will be joined by about 150 other St. Jude riders in Centralia.
Organizers are hoping to raise at least $1 million with this year’s ride for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
Patients’ families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food.
Treatments invented at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20-percent to over 80-percent since St. Jude opened in 1962.
To learn how you can contribute to St. Jude, click HERE.
(Photo courtesy of Dave Gauf)
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