Women who can wrap themselves in thick robes during treatments at the Edwards Cancer Institute at Cabell Huntington Hospital can thank the Ashland Star Riders for the warmth.
Funds from the group’s Endurance Ride for Breast Cancer helped with that purchase in 2023. That was the year the motorcyclists raised $9,000, a larger-than-usual amount, thanks to a member who donated a motorcycle so it could be auctioned as part of the fundraising.
Motorcyclist Tom Maynard and his wife, Vicky, joined the group in 2017, the same year Vicky was diagnosed with breast cancer. Accompanying his wife to treatments at the Cancer Center, Tom met people who would drive two or three hours to make 8 a.m. appointments. Some faced financial challenges.
Tom and Vicky’s desire to help others inspired the Endurance Ride for Breast Cancer. Since its inception in 2019, the rides have raised approximately $36,000. The funds are equally divided between the Cancer Institute and the Homeless Veterans Resource Center in Huntington.
“We are just trying to pay it forward,” said the field operations/sales manager for Walker Transfer-Powell in Kenova. “We just felt like there were a lot of people who were worse off than we were.
“We thought if we could buy them gasoline cards or get them a hotel room, we could help them out. We felt like we needed to do something to give back a little bit and help some people.”
Though turning 61 this year, Maynard doesn’t let age stop him. Last October, he led half a dozen Star Riders on the latest Endurance Ride. The group completed a journey of just over 1,300 miles in less than 23 hours.
Starting at the Marathon Refinery in Catlettsburg, they rode south to Southaven, Mississippi, before heading north to St. Louis and then east toward home on I-64.
The 2024 participants helped raise nearly $2,750 for the Cancer Institute. Funds went to the Cancer Institute’s Good Samaritan program, which provides various forms of assistance to needy cancer patients.
The Kenova native said he and Vicky want to give people hope. He notes that several coworkers, two members of the Star Riders, and others the couple knows have been diagnosed with various forms of cancer.
“When you hear that you’ve tested positive, it’s a devastating blow,” Maynard said. “We want people to know there is hope. It’s a struggle and a fight, but there’s hope. If we can get people through it, it’s worth it. It’s our way of saying, ‘Thank you.’”
Cancer patients and supporters of MHN Foundations would tell the Maynards: “Thank you.”
