Tour of Honor - A Charity Ride

I signed up for the Tour of Honor (TOH) motorcycle rally this year. I have thought about it for several years now and decided to sign up since my other favorite rally is drying up. From the rally website:

"Tour of Honor is a great reason to hit the open road, honor our nation's heroes, and contribute to a few good charities. The event is a season-long, self-directed ride to memorials and monuments around the continental U.S., Alaska and Hawaii. Beginning April 1, visit as many sites as you want, with any route you choose."

TOH charities include:

- The Fisher House Foundation

- Operation Comfort Warriors

- Police and Fire: The Fallen Heroes

$20 from each rider registration is donated to one of those 3 charities. This is a truly remarkable rally in the sense that some of the entry fee goes to a good cause.


Recently a young Sailor committed suicide on a submarine. Every time this happens it affects me in ways that are hard to put into words. Many of you know my brother took his life in 2010. Most of you probably don't know he was a veteran of the Army. This time I want to do something.

I am going to dedicate my TOH rides to my brother, and to every service member who has had thoughts of hurting themselves. I plan to make it like a ride-a-thon. Anyone who would like to support my efforts can make a donation that I will contribute equally to 2 additional charities. I suggest a donation based on how many sites I visit during the rally, but if you prefer, a one-time donation would also be greatly appreciated. Every single penny will be donated. None of your money will be used to offset any of my riding expenses.

The charities I am considering are:

- Mission 22: donations are used to get veterans treatment when they need it most.

- Operation Tango Mike: established in March 2003, OTM is a community effort sending monthly care packages to deployed troops. Disclaimer - this charitable organization is run by my Aunt, Ginny Craven. Her organization does some really excellent work for our deployed troops.

So how does it all work? I am still working out the nuts and bolts, but plan to use a GoFundMe page to collect and track the donations (Note - GoFundMe does charge the organizer (me) a service fee to handle the donations). I will update everyone about every week with progress, and will also post some "from the road" updates on my longer rides. At the end of the rally I will provide a final update with the number of sites visited, total money collected and how it was distributed.

How much could it raise? Who knows! This is my first experience with this kind of effort. Here's some information you can use to plan out how much you might like to donate:

- TOH is nationwide with 7 sites per state. To be a finisher you have to visit at least 7 sites in any state.

- I think it is reasonable to think I might visit about 30 sites during the rally. I hope to collect all sites in at least Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Depending on time off and other rallies, the total could be more.

Independent of any other donations, I plan to donate $10 per site visited. I don't expect anyone else to donate that much. Please realize that even a dollar helps. Give what you think is appropriate, even if it is simply encouragement.

Want to donate? For now, just let me know how much via e-mail, Facebook message or by leaving a comment on this blog. Your help is gratefully and humbly accepted.

So that's it for now. Let me know what you think. I will post more details in the near future as I figure out the GoFundMe implementation.

If you have thoughts on my effort please leave a comment. I do moderate all comments, so don't worry if it doesn't show up immediately.