PUTNEY — A fundraising campaign finale party has been scheduled for the effort to purchase a state-of-the-art handcycle for Alicia Dana, a Putney woman who is in training for the U.S. National Paracycling Championship and other events.
The party will take place on Thursday, Sept. 1, from 5 to 8 p.m., at the Putney Inn. It will be a celebration of the fundraising and positive energy campaign surrounding the saga of Dana's stolen handcycle.
There will be hors d'oeuvres by the Putney Inn, a cash bar, and live music with Ben Mitchell, Donald Saaf, Steve West, and Mark Borax.
Suggested admission is one raffle ticket, which is $5. All previous donors are automatically entered.
The community fund raising effort has raised more than $8,600 online. And counting offline donations, according to organizer Dede Cummings, it is very close to the fundraising goal of $10,000, with raffle ticket sales expected to put the effort over the top.
Money raised beyond the cost of the handcycle itself will help support Dana's training and travel costs. This includes a training camp in Colorado at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in September; the Three-Notch Century Ride to support Northeast Passage (an adaptive recreation nonprofit based at the University of New Hampshire) in early September; the U.S. Handcycling series' final race of the 2011 season, the Capital Criterium in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 2; a windtrainer for off-season training; and finally the U.S. Handcycling 2012 series races, including the National Championships in Georgia.
Dana, 42, has been paralyzed from the waist down since she fell 40 feet from a tree during her senior year at The Putney School in 1989. Formerly a nationally competitive cyclist, she took up wheelchair racing and then became a passionate handcyclist when handcycles were invented in the mid-1990s.
After marriage and the birth of her child, she took a long break from competition, and only recently has she gotten back into it. She won the Vermont City Marathon in Burlington last May, and was inspired to seriously train again for national events.
But in late July, she was forced to leave her machine at the side of a road due to a flat tire, and when she was able to return to retrieve it, it had been stolen.
Realizing that her old machine was outdated anyway, friends began a campaign to raise money to replace the stolen machine. The ensuing publicity resulted in its return, but the campaign continued. The returned machine, a “Freedom Ryder,” is 11 years old and would no longer serve Dana well in top-level competition.
The grand prize in the raffle is a private garden tour for six people in the world-renowned Westminster garden of Gordon and Mary Hayward, followed by wine and cheese in the garden and a chance to hear all about the Haywards' work and discuss garden design with them. (Note: the prize must be used by Sept. 9, or deferred until summer 2012.)
Additional raffle prizes include a comprehensive bike tune-up for West Hill Shop; a bike fitting from personal trainer Todd Miller; a catering prize from Elizabethan Fare; artwork by local artists Richard Foye, Barbara Holliday, Mary Hepburn, Julia Zanes, and Donald Saaf; massages and bodywork by Amy Bond Taliaferro, Bonnie Hill, Kim Timlege, and Collin Leech; a private pilates class with Jane LoMonaco; two hours of high-tech studio recording at SoundDesign; gift certificats from PeekaBoutique and Between Earth & Sky; and a cookbook and free registration in the 2012 Tour de Heifer from Strolling of the Heifers.
Donations to the handcycle effort can still be made, either online, or by mail with check made out to Alicia Dana at to DCDesign, 139 Main St., Brattleboro, VT 05301.