Riders on the Storm Raise Money for Kavanagh House

Gray skies may have threatened a good time, but there was no washing out a memorial ride to celebrate the life of Chris Reimers and raise support for EveryStep and the Kavanagh House where he spent his final days surrounded by family.

Stroom Motorsports in Altoona hosted the memorial ride on May 30th.  The day brought forth every emotion for organizer Michelle “Shelly” Anderson.  She began planning the ride as her brother, Chris, was in the final stages of his battle with brain cancer.  Chris, a lifelong rider, had bikes on his mind until the very end, she said.

“He kept asking me to take him for a ride on my bike,” Shelly remembers about her days in his room at Kavanagh House, “He was in-and-out of (cognizance) and we eventually told him that we did take him for a ride to ease his mind.  He said: ‘Oh, that’s right … but it wasn’t a very long ride!’”

But Shelly had a plan to make it up to Chris with a memorial ride in his honor.  But getting to the big day proved to be easier said than done.  Shelly’s boyfriend was hit by a teen driver and suffered a broken leg and back (don’t worry, he’s on the road to recovery).  Then on the day of the ride, early morning storms arrived.

But Shelly and a group of true friends stuck it out and proved the forecasters wrong as clouds parted, and the sun shined down to welcome a small but powerful group of riders to the finish line.  

“All of my closest riding friends were there until the very end,” Shelly said, “They kept outbidding each other on silent auction items and handing me cash.”  After adding up all the gifts and donations, Shelly – along with Chris’ wife, daughter and grandson – made a gift of more than $2,500 for Kavanagh House and the EveryStep Foundation.

Shelly says, though still exhausted from organizing the ride and caring for her injured boyfriend, she isn’t ruling out a second ride with the promise of better weather bringing a better turnout.