Biker Run Birthday: Where Charity Gets the Gift

We all have our traditional birthdays every year. Most of the time we have friends and family come hang out and have a good time. Hay we know that means a good time. The key question is ? Do we really ever get the gifts we want ? Lets take a moment and go away from the normal birthday themes. Have you ever stopped and said " Hey someone Else needed that more than me." I have found that one of the best birthday gifts I can receive is where I am giving back to a good cause.

Recently I joined one of our local bars and friends in putting together a Charity run. It just so happens that the day of the run was Doks birthday. Hint, hint the reason why we named it Doks birthday run. Dok is one of the local bikers in Longwood , Florida. Just like any other good hearted person he wanted to give back to those in need. Putting together a run is no easy task but it is well worth it in the end. I will take you through the process of setting up a run as well as give you other ideas for great biker fun for Charity.

So let's get started. First choose the name of your run. We choose Doks birthday poker run. After you choose a name you will need to pick your Charity of choice. Now don't think you have to pick only one because you can do as many as you like. Our Charity of choice for this run was The American Cancer Society and The Orlando VA Domiciliary Program. We also choose Locks of Luv. I will get back to that later.

Next you need to figure out what type of fundraisers you are going to use on this run. We choose 7 card stud where the winner donates winning to his choice out of the charity's. We had local company's donate items for a auction with all proceed to benefit the run. We also had a company donate a large item for a raffle. Tickets were sold for a dollar a piece. Now we also had those who were riding in the run donate a fee for fun too. Riders did ten and passengers did five.

There was 152 to bikes signed up for this run. So we were off to a good start. Now you need to pick your stops. We used our local bars for this run. You do not have to use all bars. You can have food stops even Golf. Remember this is all for fun. Your local Harley Davidson store is really great with helping out. The places we choose was :

1. ShovelHead Lounge
2. Blackhammock
3. Fox Head's
4. Sand Bar
5. Trader Jacks
6. Art's Place
7. Dale's Ale's
8. Jonny Rotton's Bar Out Back

This made it over 90+ miles long. Also the local bars that were on this run donates to the benefit as well. You can also have local merchants set up at each stop and the donate 50/50. Which means 50 % of their sells goes back to the benefit as well. Local Band W.T.F donated their time rocking the night away. We started at 9am and ended at 4pm when last bike was in at our finial bar and thats when all the fun comes in. This was a well thought out run and made loads of cash for the cause. There was still one surprise left.

I know Locks Of Luv whats that about. Well our local Dok decided he was going to cut his hair with a sword . First he auctioned off who would get to cut. Trust me it started a trend. All hair that was cut off that day was donated to Locks Of Luv. If you can use you imaginations you can have a lot of fun with a run like this. Of course at the end we had the Dok a birthday cake. The best gift he got was over 200 people willing to donate to his cause . The gift of giving and not receiving a gift back.

Even if you don't have a bike doesn't mean you can't be a part. We had many,many show up in cars and trucks. If you want to have a party like this and give back but you don't have a bike. Just go to your local bar and have a one bar stop. You can have just as much fun on a one stop as you do for a 9 stop. All you do is plan your games etc for one place.

Don't get me wrong you don't have to have a biker birthday. You can use any theme you want as long as you put on your invites and flyer's that is for the benefit of Charity. If you want to make it huge pass out flyer's at local Bars. Most of the bars will allow you to hang them up as well. You would be surprised how many people will show up ready and willing to help. Sometimes we really need to take a step back and think about those who need it more than us those who just can't help themselves.

Would like to send out a special thanks to those who made this day go smooth. Dok & Morris, Tigger, Sparkie , Fire , Ice , Pyro , Nancy & Mark and last but not lease Glenda & Jeff from Shovelhead Lounge. You all worked hard and it truly paid off for our charity's. Thanks to WTF for rocking the night away . Great thanks to all our local merchants who donated for the auction as well as our local bars who made this all happen...