Velocity 2021 raises over $27,000 despite having to go virtual this year

By Rob Paul

Every summer, Caledon Community Services (CCS) puts on their Velocity cycling fundraiser to support seniors in the community. This year the event ran in June and ended with a virtual finish line event on June 19.

In its third year, Velocity wasn't the same as in the past. After having the event in 2018 and 2019, CCS was not able to run in 2020 due to the pandemic but pivoted to a virtual event in 2021 to ensure funds would be there to help senior clients.

The Velocity fundraiser goes toward CCS' efforts to provide services such as 24/7 assisted living, community support programs, transitional care from hospital to home, health and wellness programming, accessible transportation, and more.

These services are integral to helping empower seniors and ensuring they're not isolated—especially during the circumstances of the pandemic. 

Donna Cragg, Caledon Community Services Director of Communications, said she was happy to see such strong support from the Caledon community and residents and staff's willingness to get active for a great cause.

“We had great participation,” she said. “83 per cent of the participants were from Caledon and the rest from the surrounding area and 18 per cent of the participants actually came from our staff. Our staff stepped up in a big way to support it, that was actually really nice to see. People could ride 10, 25, 50, or 100 kilometres and it was all to raise funds for seniors programming.

We've raised just over $27,000 and the pledges are coming in until the end of the month. People could ride 10, 25, 50, or 100 kilometres and it was all to raise funds for seniors programming.”

Although they felt short of their fundraising goal, it was still a major success in Cragg's eyes with everything they were up against this year. 

“The goal for the event going into it was $50,000, but with switching to virtual and with all things considered it was an amazing result for the community at this time,” she said. “Even as we're at the end of COVID with everyone tired and exhausted the community still stepped up. That's incredible to me.”

It was CCS' first foray into running Velocity as a virtual event and it wasn't without its hiccups, but Cragg felt it was the perfect outlet for families and residents to get out and enjoy the weather and scenery Caledon has to offer after a tough 15 months of the pandemic. 

“Last year we didn't have the ride at all because it came up so quickly,” she said. “So, we switched to virtual this year and it did present challenges; I would say the participation was down slightly. It was still an amazing opportunity to get out and enjoy Caledon in a safe manner because being able to cycle within your family or bubble is just amazing. Certainly, there was positives and challenges that went along with it, but as a whole it was really well received by the community.”

One of the big highlights of the event was the Chairman's Ride, when Velocity 2021 Committee Chair Phil Hodgson stopped at eight facilities where CCS' seniors health and wellness programs take place to show the seniors how important they are to Caledon. 

“The chair of the committee (Phil Hodgson) and the board chair (Ian Armstrong) rode from seniors building to seniors building in Caledon to hit 100 kilometres,” she said. “The seniors came out and cheered them on and shared their stories about how our programs support them. That was a really nice element of the ride.”

There's always going to be inspirational stories that go hand in hand with an event like Velocity and Cragg pointed out two that stood out the most this year. 

“The gentleman who raised the most funds that rode in the event (Ted Webb) is actually a senior himself—he's 88 years old,” she said. “He raised over $2,000; people really wanted to support him because he's a senior raising money for seniors. It was pretty heartwarming. Another fun one was there was a father and son from Bolton that both work for TD (Steve and Matthew Oliveira), so they did a team TD. They got seven or eight co-workers to ride with them and they raised $2,500 and TD matched it. The son works in the branch in Bolton, and he felt strongly because lots of his customers that he sees everyday are seniors in Caledon, so he was really passionate about doing his ride to support them. That was another amazing story that came out of the ride.”

To make the event extra fun for families, Cragg says they decided to incorporate a game on the shorter bike ride to help keep kids engaged. 

“There was signage along the 10 kilometre ride—all on the Caledon Trailway—and there was a word scramble,” she said. “There were signs that each had two letters on them so when you got back you had to take all the letters you collected on the 10K and sort them into a phase. That was a fun little thing, especially for families that have kids. The phrase when it was worked out was, ‘we love our seniors,' and we had some prizes. It was really well received and just a nice little add on to the event to make it more fun and engaging.”

Overall, it wasn't the ideal situation, but Cragg was happy to see them make the most of it and she thinks the Velocity 2021 YouTube video they put together really encapsulates the support for the event and seniors in general. 

“There was a hashtag,” she said. “People were posting pictures on social media using #Velocity2021 and then we made a little video for people to watch on YouTube for the virtual finish line www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO8M-FKSYhI).”

For more information or to donate to Velocity 2021, visit caledoncommunityservices.akaraisin.com/ui/Velocity2021.