Off the Road Again

In its first 3 years, the Rally Foundation has awarded $1 million in 39 research grants for childhood cancer research at 22 institutions across the country! We have partnered with several other childhood cancer non-profits in order to co-fund promising research, and one of these partners is the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. Rally and Alex's recently awarded a research grant to Dr. Miles at Children's National Medical Center in Washington DC, and the Rally Across America team had the opportunity to participate in a check presentation on Friday morning.


Here is the Rally Across America team presenting the check to Dr. Miles with Jay Scott, Alex's dad, from the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. Luckily, Jay brought the check with him because as you can see, we did not have any room in our car! (This was taken after we had gotten rid of a few things!)


We had a wonderful time talking to Dr. Miles and her colleagues, Dr. Newman and Dr. Sandler, over breakfast and were excited to learn more about their exciting research! Dr. Newman, a fellow cyclist, loaned us his DC area cycling route guide (circa 1980s), and he promised that he and Dr. Sandler would cycle with the RAA team next year! Dr. Sandler is not yet a cyclist, but that has never stopped anyone from joining Rally Across America!

We left goody bags for the kids being treated for cancer at DC Children's, and then we went to Georgetown University Hospital for our last hospital visit. The kids there loved the goody bags just as much as the kids at the other 5 hospitals that the team visited this year, and we look forward to visiting kids again next year!

Friday afternoon we loaded everyone and everything back into the car to drive to the last destination of our trip. The 5 hour drive from DC to Greensboro, NC actually took 7 1/2 hours due to rain and traffic, but the important thing is that we finally made it!


This morning we enjoyed a wonderful breakfast thanks to Claire's aunt and uncle, and then got back into the car one last time. We arrived back in Atlanta this afternoon very thankful for how well the trip went, how many new friends we made, and how much money we raised for childhood cancer research! Amazingly, we had no flat tires, no car trouble, no injuries, and we made it to all of our hospital visits and events on time! Actually, Jai had car trouble when we got back to Atlanta and found out his car battery was dead, but it was an easy fix and we weren't supposed to be back in Atlanta until tomorrow anyway.

Thank you for all of your support this year! Don't forget to check back for the "out takes" blog post...coming soon...and don't forget to order t-shirts from Claire@rallyfoundation.org!

Rally On!
Claire, Magan, Michael, and Jai

All Good Things Have to Come to an End

A change in plans found us finished with our DC events a day early, so we packed up the car and headed out of DC this afternoon. After driving in the rainy Friday afternoon DC traffic, we made it to Claire's aunt's house in Greensboro, NC to spend the night. We're looking forward to starting tomorrow morning with a hearty breakfast before drivng the rest of the way back to Atlanta.

We'll do a longer update tomorrow with pictures from today, and we also have an "out takes" blog planned with lots of pictures you haven't seen yet. So stay tuned for more final posts from the 2009 Rally Across America team, and be sure to email Claire@rallyfoundation.org to order some t-shirts!

Rally On!
Claire, Magan, Jai, and Michael

Simply DC: Our Brains are Fried

Today seemed like a blur… not sure if it was the 135 miles on the heated, rolling hills towards Washington, DC or the unpacking and unloading of the car for the fourth time this week or getting locked outside of our host home? We feel like we are literally moving into a new place on a daily basis, but just can’t seem to make up our minds of where to permanently reside.



Needless to say, today was filled with oceanic scenery, sail boats and yachts of all sizes, some generous strangers in the suburbs carrying a goldfish in one hand and four cherry Popsicles in the other, a pit stop to Taco Bell, a tour of the historic monuments of DC, and cuisine Thai food provided by our tour guide, Mary Beth. This is our day in a nutshell, if anything does not make sense, which I'm sure half of it will not, feel free to ask questions, we will be glad to clear any confusion.



We are off to sleep to rest up for our remaining 150 miles, hospital visits and check presentation with Alex's Lemonade Stand tomorrow!

Rally On,

Magan, Claire, Michael & Jai

T-shirts!

We have a limited number of 2009 Rally Across America t-shirts left to sell this year. This year's shirts were designed by Michael, one of the cyclists. Please help us sell all of our t-shirts and get closer to our goal of raising $75,000! T-shirts are only $15 (including shipping) - think of it as a great way to make a donation and have something to remember Rally Across America 2009!Front of t-shirt

Back of T-shirt

If you would like to order a t-shirt (or several!), please email Claire@rallyfoundation.org with the size (youth and adult sizes available), quantity, your name, and address.

Rally On!
T-shirt Team

Meet the 2009 Team!

Here is a post that we posted a few days ago, but for some reason it showed up as a much earlier post and I don't think anyone saw it!
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We never really introduced our blog readers to the 2009 Rally Across America team...so here we are!

This year we have three new riders, and by new, we mean new to Rally and new to cycling!


(Magan's new motto: Bike, Train, Live)

Magan is a recent graduate of Kennesaw State University and is this year's Rally Across America Team Leader. In addition to interning in the Rally Foundation office this summer, she has been training for the ride! She has been training the longest of the RAA team members - she started cycling in May : )


Michael is a graphic designer and is originally from South Africa. He became excited about the cause and decided to join the team as well, and he and his iphone are a great addition to the team!



Jai is also a graphic designer and is originally from Ghana. Magan and Michael told him so much about the Rally Kids and Rally Across America, that he had to join the team too!



Claire is the Rally Kid Coordinator and has been involved with Rally Across America since the beginning. She drives the support car and her expertise includes figuring out how to cram everything into the back of the support car.