Dear Friends & Family, Three of us, Jaideep Khanna, Aashish Contractor and Prashant Mehta support a cause and use our bikes as a way to achieve our philanthropic goal as we cycle from Mumbai to Pune and back non-stop, a journey covering 320 kms (200 miles). Last year we rode from Mumbai to Pune non-stop, covering 175 km (110 miles). The ride was self-funded and we raised over Rs. 15 lakhs for St. Jude Child Care Centre, a charity that works with children suffering from cancer and for Akanksha, an organization that provides education for under-privileged children. This year we hope to raise much more and cover nearly double the distance. On Sunday, April 1, our goal is to raise more than Rs. 35 lakhs. During the 14-16 hours that we expect to be on the bike, we will face temperatures ranging from 20*C (68*F) to over 40*C (104*F) and have to dodge erratic truckers, rowdy motorists, mad dogs, stray cows, road kill and assorted potholes, not exactly Highway 1 in California! TO DONATE: Simply enter an amount below and click on "contribute" - Pay Online: Select "CC Avenue" or "Paypal" at checkout - Pay Offline: Select "Cash on Delivery" at checkout and someone will come home to pickup a cheque or cash TO DONATE TO ANOTHER CHARITY: - If you want Wishberry.in to send the funds to the NGO donate as usual below and email fundraising@wishberry.in to specify the name of the charity - If you want to send the funds yourself but simply show your donation below, email fundraising@wishberry.in with your name, email ID, and pledge amount Thank you for your support! The crazy bikers

About

About St. Jude ChildCare Center:

The founders of St. Jude India uncovered a huge unmet social need to provide a safe and clean environment for children to recuperate during their Cancer treatment. These children, along with their families, travel to Mumbai from distant towns and villages, in the hope of being cured at the Tata Memorial Hospital, where they receive free of charge treatment. Unfortunately, while the hospital is able to provide medical treatment to these children, they often have no place to live and end up sleeping on the footpaths outside the hospital, in terribly unhygienic conditions. As we know from our own experiences with people suffering from chronic diseases like Cancer, the environment in which we convalesce is important to ensure that treatment is effective. However, these children, who already have severely weakened immunity systems due to their ongoing chemotherapy, become susceptible to various infections and other diseases which make the treatment they receive at Tata Memorial Hospital, short of ineffective.

Our Role 

St. Judes, with its centres across the city, provides, free of cost housing for these children and their parents, along with free nutritional support, transportation services to take these children to the hospital, counseling services as well as activities such as 'art-based therapy' to keep them engaged and motivated during their time away from the hospital. Our goal is to create a "home away from home" for these children, by providing them with the physical and emotional necessities that will give them a better chance of beating Cancer.

Why are we different? 

At St. Judes, we don’t just seek to provide shelter to these child patients. Our mission and work rests firmly on our core value, that high quality and holistic healthcare facilities should be available to all regardless of their economic status. We have therefore incorporated the highest quality standards in all aspects of the care we provide – including the hygiene and cleanliness of our centres, the food grains we provide to our families and the quality of educational and recreational support we offer. In a country where care for the needy, has long been accepted as dismal, at best, St. Judes is working to not only fill in a large unmet need, but also to fundamentally change this mindset.  

We will be cycling from Mumbai to Pune and back, non-stop, covering a distance of 320 km in the process.  If you would like to ride with us, or support us at the start / finish line, here are the details.  for those who are riding, please note that on the stretch from mum to panvel, we will be maintaining an average speed of 25 km/hr, and on the same stretch on the way back if all is well, we should be doing around 24 km/hr.

Bike with the “Crazy Bikers” to show your support for the children from St. Judes -  you can join us from any of the below pit stops:

Start: Oval maiden (Mumbai university), Mumbai - Saturday 31^st March, 19:00 PM

Pit Stop 1: Panvel Opposite McDonalds - Saturday 31^st March, 21:00 PM

Pit Stop 2: Khandala - Saturday 31^st March, 23:00 PM

Pit Stop 4: Panvel at McDonalds - Sunday 1^st April, 07:10 AM(+/- 30 min)

Finish: Oval maiden (Mumbai university), South Mumbai - Sunday 1^st April, 09:15 AM(+/- 30 min)

Don’t despair if you can’t  – Join us on Facebook to get regular updates on km’s covered, mishaps, upcoming hurdles and more http://www.facebook.com/NoPauseForACause