Dorothy: [00:00:00] Can a motorcycle challenge save lives? The short answer is yes, but you don’t have to ride 11,000 miles across America to make a difference. Today, Mike Hazelrigs joins our fundraising manager, Shannon McNair, to talk about his Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge, which he did for The Rose. Mike shares how he turned his passion into fundraising for breast cancer services, and he says that two years of investment is nothing compared to a life and a family. Mike’s journey shows how simple acts of kindness can make a big impact.
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Let’s Talk About Your Breast, a different kind of [00:01:00] podcast presented to you by The Rose Breast Center of Excellence and a Texas treasure. You’re going to hear frank discussions about tough topics, and you’re going to learn why knowing about your breast could save your life.
Shannon: So we’re here with Mike Hazelrigs, who just finished the Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge. And you chose to ride for The Rose and raise money for us. So talk a little bit about, we know you chose The Rose, you have a tie to The Rose, used to ride in our event, the Bikers Against Breast Cancer. But what was it like deciding, okay, we’re going to fundraise for The Rose. I’m going to do this and then making that call, like, and what we went through to get that set up for you.
Mike: I can’t speak to what y’all went through, but to me, it was easy. Super easy. I called, um, I was set up with you. I kind of gave you an idea of what I was doing. Everybody thought I was crazy, which probably true, but. What I didn’t want to deal with was the money side of things. And y’all [00:02:00] provided a website, you provided cards, you provided, you know, everything that I wanted to get going. Was provided for me. It was super easy.
Shannon: Wonderful. Well, it was easy for us too, because we were super excited, even though we probably thought you were crazy to try to do this. I say challenge is an understatement when they call that right? A challenge? And not everyone has to do a challenge like you’ve done.
Mike: Exactly.
Shannon: The big thing, a 14 day investment, countless hours outside of that. But we want to encourage, and what could you say to the folks, we have rooks that raised $200 for us, up to kind of the level that you did, and everything in between, and um, why is it important to raise money, uh, for The Rose, uh, in, in any kind of fundraising effort?
Mike: Go stand in the waiting room. Tell those women you won’t help. It’s easy. It’s a little bit of time. Two years of investment is nothing compared to a life and a family. [00:03:00] That’s it.
Shannon: That’s easy. And of course, we say that every day because we’re here every day. And I want people to know that obviously you had a two year investment, countless hours, your family investment as well in what we were doing. But most people don’t have to make that investment to do what you were doing and make a difference.
Mike: It’s true.
Shannon: A little bit, every little bit helps. Um, we have, you know, school kids that raise money. You’ve talked about that, how kids came and handed you money in a cup. And you know, all of that counts and all of that adds up and we don’t have to have the two year commitment.
We love it. We’re excited. Trust me, big fan here of the whole challenge and watching you do what you did was able to track you across the states was amazing, but I also love tracking our students here and our kids who raise funds and every little bit helps. And so we just want to encourage everyone who wants to do something to do something.
Mike: I can’t tell you how easy it is working with The Rose. A, the fact that you’re, um, was it platinum that we’ve talked about in the past, you know the money’s used [00:04:00] properly. And, and I think that’s part of the word that needs to get out that because there’s so many charities and questionable charities these days that really needs to be emphasized. But it couldn’t have been easier. How simple is this to make a difference? So, talk to Shannon.
Shannon: And we love doing it too. And to that point, um, knowing that the money is, you know, we’re very cautious about how we spend our money here at The Rose. And we have that fact too. Anytime we spend money, we think, is it worth the mammogram we can’t give someone? So we don’t, you know, we don’t take that lightly when we are, uh, looking at our fundraisers and what we can do to help support people. But it’s easy for us to do too. Just, you know, that’s something that’s easy on us to do. We have the means to make that happen, to make, uh, the fundraising is easy as possible.
And to take your point, you didn’t want to handle the money. We have a lot of folks who are that way, who they don’t want to handle the money. And we can make that easier and in that step and make sure that their donors know that when they make that investment in you and your efforts, they’re making investment at us, that we’re going to take care of those funds and [00:05:00] that those funds are coming directly to us.
Mike: Well, even the paperwork on the back end. So you make the donation. The website sends you the receipt, you get a lovely note from Dorothy, then you get a terribly hand scrawled note from me, in my case, or whoever else is doing their thing. You know it’s appreciated, you know it’s going for a worthwhile cause, and ask. They’ll tell you where it’s going. So.
Shannon: And to your point, you, because you planned for two years, and the bike ride was in Octo, in August, is actually when the ride and the challenge happen, and we’ve got a lot of folks who raise money for us in October and we talk about that a lot. But also, cancer doesn’t care.
Mike: Doesn’t care at all.
Shannon: What month you’re doing it in. So we talked to you almost a year ago, a little bit before, more than a year, um, when you first came to us with this plan, knowing we had a year to talk about your fundraising, but the ride would be over way before October. We didn’t do anything in October around your ride, really, and your challenge and your fundraising efforts.
So, um, it doesn’t have to be October. It’s great when it is, but cancer doesn’t care. And we do a lot of fundraisers throughout the year, so people don’t [00:06:00] have to plan only for October, but any time of year. So, you did a, not just a motorcycle challenge, I say challenge as an understatement, on what you did.
Uh, but we also have folks, just so you know, who jump out of planes for The Rose, who do things like that, who, uh, do, uh, wear blue jean days at school, tennis tournaments, golf tournaments, all those things in between, sell items. They create something for the month and they sell items and give us proceeds.
So there’s all kinds of ways you can raise money. It’s not just a hardcore challenge or something like a golf tournament, everything in between. And in order to get help, you can reach us at events at therose.Org. That’s how Mike got to us. And you’ll get to myself and Latanya and we’ll help plan your efforts and make it as easy as possible. That’s our goal is we want to make it successful and as easy as possible as we can. We can’t ride the ride for you.
Mike: I wouldn’t let you.
Shannon: I’m a big fan. I’m never doing it. As I think I told Kathy, huge fan, but I’m never gonna do this. But we can help you at [00:07:00] [email protected] and you’ll get right to us and we’ll help you figure out what, how’s best to help The Rose and to help those women that you’ll never meet, but they’re there, um, because you were there.
Post-Credits: Thank you for joining us today on Let’s Talk About Your Breasts. This podcast is produced by Speke Podcasting, and brought to you by The Rose. Visit therose.org to learn more about our organization. Subscribe to our podcast. Share episodes with friends, and join the conversation on social media using #Let’sTalkAboutYourBreasts. We welcome your feedback and suggestions. Consider supporting The Rose. Your gift can make the difference to a person in need. And remember, self care is not selfish. It’s essential.
