Dustin’s Dream ride set for Saturday
will be riding for a good cause during the second annual Dustin’s Dream Benefit Ride on Saturday.
Participants will begin at Generations Bank in Siloam Springs and make their way through parts of Northwest Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma before returning for lunch and door prizes.
Funds raised at the event will contribute to the nonprofit, founded to honor the life of Dustin Chamberlain, who planned to be a missionary doctor before he was tragically killed during a home invasion in 2011. Dustin’s Dream supports international medical mission trips, provides medical scholarships and partners with organizations that serve the local community, according to the organization’s website, dustinsdream.net.
The Heart of Love Clinic in Guatemala City, Guatemala, which Dustin’s Dream funds and helped to build, has been especially impacted by the covid-19 pandemic, according to Dustin’s mother Deondra Chamberlain. The settlement the clinic serves is built around one of the largest garbage dumps in the world. It has been closed because of the pandemic along with a number of businesses, giving the people who live there no place to work or obtain food, she said.
The clinic has still been able to provide medical care during the pandemic, with additional safety precautions in place such as gloves and masks, and has also worked to give out bags of food to families in need, Deondra said.
Three mission trips to the clinic had to be canceled because of the pandemic and it will probably be 2021 before any more trips will be scheduled, she said.
“Those people had no income and no way to get food for their families,” Deondra said. “Due to generous supporters we have been able to provide food.”
Registration for the benefit ride is $30 per rider and $15 per passenger and begins at 8:30 a.m. The last rider out will be at 9:30 a.m. Riders will have a chance to draw a chip at five stops along the route. The high score will win $200 and the low score will win $100. Social distancing and safety measures will be practiced before and after the ride, Deondra said.
More than 20 door prizes have been donated for the event, said Chris Borkert, director of Dustin’s Dream. The nonprofit is also selling raffle tickets for a donated shotgun. The drawing for the raffle will take place at Dustin’s 9th Heavenly Birthday Party, tentatively planned for 5:30 p.m. Dec. 12 at Camp Siloam Springs.
Deondra hopes to make the benefit ride a tradition on the first Saturday of each October, she said. If this year’s event is rained out, it will be rescheduled for Oct. 10, she said.
More information is available at ww.dustinsdream.net/dustins-dream-benefitride-2019.html