While it’s not surprising to see a group of Dal students organizing events for charity, the speed of the Dalhousie Commerce Society’s efforts — measured in both time and pedaling — was something impressive.
In the final week leading up to the Dal stop on the National Inside Ride Tour on October 3, the event's participants, which included community partners, pushed hard to raise over $8,000, bringing the Dal total to just over $12,000.
Celebrating its third anniversary, the Inside Ride Tour is making stops in more than 30 cities across Canada. The event is the brainchild of the Coast to Coast Against Cancer Foundation. Since its inception, the Dalhousie Commerce Society, who collectively represent over 1,000 undergraduate business students, have hosted the event here at Dal.
The Inside Ride is a stationary cycling challenge: the participants rotate through the bikes, with each cyclist riding for 10 minutes while volunteers record the team’s overall mileage. The mileage matters — but not as much as the money raised. (Over the past three years, Dal’s Inside Ride events have raised more than $35,000.)
Half the funds will support Camp Goodtime in the Annapolis Valley, where kids suffering from cancer can go and be kids in a safe environment. The other half are earmarked for the IWK Health Centre’s oncology unit.
For this year’s event, the Kings’ Gymnasium was packed with over 90 riders, including students, staff, corporate sponsors and community partners.
How did the students raise the money, you might be wondering? And so fast? Well if your mind went immediately to corporate sponsorship, you would be partly right. Both Grant Thornton and Cossette East were proud supporters, each sending in a team of riders. But students alone brought in almost 60 per cent of the funds.
When asked their secret to success, event organizer and Dalhousie Commerce Society VP external Andrew Quinlan was quick to thank very supportive friends and family. The key tactic? Constant Facebook status updates. Miriam Breslow, an administrator at the Rowe School of Management, and one of the top fundraisers this year, said her strategy relied heavily on email — and of course, she said a last-minute texting drive didn’t hurt.
The future of Dal’s the Inside Ride is looking quite bright. “Dal Commerce Society is absolutely behind this cause,” said Quinlan. They hope to increase corporate partners in the future — and to get even more of the Dal community involved. Organizers envision marketing the event within more faculties, and perhaps putting some residence teams together next year. After all, “raising funds to help kids fight cancer is just such a great cause.”