Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Bikers have a Santa cause
Thousands on charity ride bring toys, services to children.
Temperatures in the low ’50s failed to cool the enthusiasm of tens of thousands of bikers who filled two interstate highways with motorcycles to support sick children.
It was all part of Sunday morning’s 30th annual Toys in the Sun Run to benefit programs and services for kids at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood. Organizers say more than $4 million and countless toys have been collected over the years.
This year was the first time a member of the Amchir family was not running the event. Longtime director “Tattoo” Dave Amchir, of Tamarac, died of a heart attack in May. He was 54. He had taken over the event in 2006 after his father, and event founder Bob Amchir, died of leukemia.
“[Dave] was such a gentleman and such a good person and he loved this event,” said Broward Sheriff Scott Israel. “Look how sunny and gorgeous it is, a perfect day, and Dave is looking down on us and saying,
done.’ ”
Thousands of spectators also lined the route from the Festival Marketplace in Pompano Beach to Markham Park in Sunrise to watch the convoy of bikers head south on Interstate 95 and west on Interstate 595, escorted by about 250 law enforcement officers.
“There were groups on all the overpasses on the way here, and they were waving,” said rider Jesse Bergeron, of Coral Springs. “There was a guy in his bucket truck in a parking lot off I-95 waving too.”
Pat Ireland, of Plantation, her 96-year-old mother Odella Yaksich, from Kansas, her daughter and three grandchildren huddled against the chill by the roadside on State Road 84 to watch the procession as it left I-595 at Southwest 136th Avenue.
“This is an event for us,” she said of her third Toys in the Sun Run. “I just enjoy it.” The ride ended about 11 a.m. with a concert, a classic car show and lots of food at Markham Park.
The ride lasted about 40 minutes for those going 50 mph at the front of the pack and a little longer for those bunched up at the back, but the show lasted about an hour for specta‘Well tors.
It ended about 11 a.m. with a concert, a classic car show and lots of food at Markham Park.
“It’s not really my cup of tea,” Bergeron confessed with a chuckle. “Dragging ourselves out of bed at six on a Sunday morning when [the temperature] feels in the 40s in Florida, but at the end of the day you know this event is going to bring smiles.”