Grassroots philanthropist Dara Robinson is no stranger to the Belizean public. For the past 7 years, he has been running a low income feeding program from the confines of his home to less fortunate school students who just cannot afford breakfast or an afternoon meal. And like a good Samaritan he has been into poverty stricken neighborhoods many of times delivering boxes of grocery items on his motorcycle to families in need. But it has been a sacrifice for this poor man who has spent years fundraising to keep his passion alive. One of those events is his annual "Ride for Hunger". It's the second year and his friend Kwame Scott has teamed up with him to make it bigger and better.
Kwame Scott - Organizer of Ride
"Let me say that - one day last year, Dara called and said he had to speak to me urgently and he said he had had this vision and that there's a Diabetes ride that he knows about, and a Cancer Walk and a Social Security ride that benefits different purposes and causes. His passion is 'hunger' and he wants to do a ride to create hunger awareness and try to raise a few small skibblings for his feeding program. Being that I'm intimately involved with cycling and Dara is my very close breddrin and I'm intimately involved with the feeding program also - I had no problem executing what was his vision. Last year we started out 120 riders and at some point we had over 200 riders along the way. This year August 3rd, this Saturday - we are having the second annual "Ride for Hunger'. We've changed a couple of small things - instead of starting at 8:00, like we did last year - we will start 6:30am. We'll start the SMART headquarters on the Northern Highway, SMART is our biggest sponsor to date. We then head north to Ladyville, then we head on the Burell Boom road where we make a pitstop at the CDS gas station which is coincidentally one of our biggest, latest, corporate sponsor- they will be providing butane as of next month for the feeding program. We head from there after a 10 minute pit stop in Hattieville, onto Leslie's Imports where we will be joined but that group of ages 7 - 16 who are currently attending the Belize Bike Association. From there we rid in by the cemetery into cemetery road, down the Central American boulevard on back up to the Northern Highway and down the Phillip Goldson Highway where we finish at smart - for a small celebration where we'll have food, music and raffles where a few lucky people will win a dew prizes. Let me stress that in no certain terms that this is a ride - not a race. Technically we go as fast as the slowest rider - this is also a social ride different than any other social rides because our ride is accompanied by music throughout - we have a music sound system with a live dj mixing and talking on the mic for the entire 40 miles - big up Silver Fox sounds and Brother's Habet for providing us with the flat bed for the music and also DJ black. If you have a mountain bike, a beach cruiser, a wedge bicycle that your grandfather would ride or a racer bike that is called a road bike then you can ride with us. The elite riders are usually accompanying us and they get water and refreshments that we will be providing along the way - bananas, water, and Gatorade. There will also be a lead police escort, ambulance - a truck specifically for mechanical purposes and if you want to abandon the ride. SO you have no excuse not to join us- you don't have to the entire ride, you can do a portion if you so desire and if you want to do the whole ride then that is not a problem - we are inviting one and all it's for a worthy cause. We ask a few small things - you wear a helmet, that you pay a $5 registration fee and registrations start at 5am on Saturday morning. If you don't have any helmet - we will permit you to ride ,it's just for your own personal safety and our requirement and also we ask that you ride on the right hand side of the road and we'll see you on Saturday."
The ride starts in front of Smart on the Northern Highway at 6:30am on Saturday. Registration is 5 dollars. Also during Saturday's Ride for Hunger, there will be locations posted on the side of the highways, where monetary donations or food items can be dropped off. And there will be another fundraising event for Dara's feeding program over the weekend. It's his 6th annual Lucky Dube tribute concert that will be happening at the MCC Tennis Court on Sunday evening. There will be live performances of Lucky Dube and Peter Tosh on the big screen.
Dara Robinson – Grassroots philanthropists
"Seven years I've been pushing this feeding program and when I'm doing the fund raising and it's always that when this is over and they need finance and the food runs out –then I still have to get down for the rest of months and try to make sure that there is food because when the kids come – the sad part is that I don't like to tell them that we couldn't cook a certain day because we didn't have the money. That brings sorrow to me and then to them and I know the importance of them looking forward to it. Behind the scenes people don't know what is happening so the bigger the support the more the money can be stretched longer and that doesn't burn me because it's not like I have that kind of finance to keep up with it. But I see how God has blessed – 7 years? I didn't even realize that it's been 7 years and the kids know that they benefit from it every afternoon, so the more support we have then it's better for the program. Well it's the sixth annual tribute to Lucky Dube and what I did this year is adding a little flavor because we want reggae people to pay tribute –and for people that don't know this is the second time we've paid tribute to Peter Tosh - it's a Lucky Dube but we added Peter Tosh to it . The magic of having a big screen and you have a sound like Stone Jam backing it up - physically Lucky Dube isn't there but when you hear it and feel it – people react to that like they're answering and people love that. Beside that I have a live show of Peter Tosh."
The show starts at 4 on Sunday evening and finishes up at midnight.
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