Cycling Foundation Donates $10,000 to Boys & Girls Clubs

Grand Prix organizers want to highlight benefits of cycling and safety as children hit the roads

By Andrea Papagianis

After a successful seventh year of bringing fast-paced, road-cycling to Dana Point, organizers are again giving back to the community that has embraced the closed-course circuit race.

On November 12, members of the Dana Point Community Cycling Foundation, which puts on the annual Dana Point Grand Prix, donated $10,000 to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Capistrano Valley. The donation brings the cycling foundation’s contributions to the local Boys & Girls Clubs chapter to about $100,000, said Russ Ames, DPCCF executive director.

Since the race began in 2007, the cycling foundation has partnered with the Boys & Girls Clubs to promote a healthy lifestyle through cycling and safety while children are out biking on the road.

“We are trying to make an early impression,” Ames said. “As soon as children turn 16, cycling takes a back seat. We are trying to instill early on that biking can be an important part of their entire life, not just their childhood years.”

DPCCF will continue to impart this on children December 14 when 50 bicycles will be donated to the club for Operation Homework Holiday, an incentives based program highlighting academic achievements. BCG members earn points throughout the year, which they can redeem to purchase gifts for their families, which they may not have been able to afford, donated by local businesses and organizations.