MOCLIPS —
By Scott D. Johnston
St. John’s Chapel by the Sea Presbyterian Church played host Wednesday evening to 22 young adults who are near the end of an epic journey for a great cause. Since June 4, they have been on a 4,000-mile, coast-to-coast bicycle ride to raise money and awareness for support programs for young people impacted by cancer.
4K For Cancer and its parent organization, The Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults, are non-profits based in Baltimore, MD. The 4K for Cancer effort originally began in 2001, when a group of undergraduate students at Johns Hopkins University decided to combine their desire to fight against cancer with their dream of cycling across the country.
Since then, the effort has raised over $5 million and grown to three annual, 70-day bike rides, following different cross-country routes from Baltimore to Seattle, to Portland and to San Francisco. The organization also does two 49-day runs, both starting in San Francisco, with one going to New York, the other finishing in Baltimore. Collectively, the five events this year have raised about $800,000.
This is the third year that “Team Seattle” has stayed overnight at Chapel by the Sea, according to Cynthia Stearns, who helped coordinate their stay because, “it’s an amazing group and we’d like for our area to get involved.”
Frontager’s Pizza Co. and chef Andy Bickar brought their unique wood-fired oven pizza truck from nearby Seabrook and donated made-to-order pizzas to an already bountiful pot luck spread that church members put together.
The young riders unrolled their sleeping bags inside the church, were grateful for showers, and enjoyed breakfast the next morning before departing for Shelton, their next to last stop before ending the journey in Seattle Saturday afternoon.
The group has been pedaling through Washington state since the end of July, and left Forks Wednesday morning, on one of the longer rides of the trip, about 97 miles. After getting to Moclips, several of the riders kept going far enough to break 100 miles for the day.
Earlier, they stopped for a quick run into the Pacific Ocean at Ruby Beach. It was a homecoming of sorts for Jaclyn Rainey, a University of Washington junior from Kent, who has lost family members to the deadly disease.
“I grew up camping in places like Kalaloch,” she explained. “The first place where we hit water was Ruby Beach … it always my favorite beach as a child, and it was so cool to come back here now with the higher significance of a ride like this.”
Team Seattle co-director Austin Johnson, a graduate of McGill University in Montreal, said of the last several days of their odyssey, “…every day, national forests and parks here in Washington.. and our hosts out here, everything’s been so amazing.”
More information about 4K For Cancer can be found at www.4kforcancer.org.
Information about The Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults is available at www.ulmanfund.org.
