02 Aug Panera-Covelli fuel riders’ fundraising journeys for Pelotonia
Panera-Covelli fuel riders’ fundraising journeys for Pelotonia
Riders in Columbus want to end cancer. Panera has joined the cause and is contributing to each rider’s fundraising goals.
Steve Clifton pictured above
Panera-Covelli fuel riders’ fundraising journeys for Pelotonia
Paula Garrett-Malaska died 10 years ago and her only son, Matt, will ride his bike 50 miles to help raise money for a cure for cancer – the disease that took his mother’s life.
“She was a great woman who was simply selfless,” Matt Garrett said, explaining that he was only 24 years old when he lost his 50 year-old mother. “My hope is that we get to a cure and I feel like I am contributing by this ride.”
Matt and Melanie Garrett pictured above
Matt and his wife, Melanie, will be among more than 8,000 bicyclists participating in the Pelotonia ride in Columbus Aug. 5 through Aug. 7.
Matt and Melanie will each raise $1,500 to support their rides and Covelli Enterprises and its Panera Bread restaurants are helping.
The Covelli-Panera program, Receipts for Riders, donates 10 percent of what riders, their friends, co-workers or family members spend at Panera restaurants. Riders turn in their receipts and Panera Bread deposits 10 percent of the total in the riders’ fundraising accounts on www.Pelotonia.org.
As of late July, Covelli-Panera will be contributing about $50 to Matt and $100 to Melanie’s Pelotonia fundraising goals. But they’ll keep turning in receipts until the end of September 2016.
Sam Covelli said he is thrilled that his company can help support the Pelotonia riders who are helping to fund cancer research. “It is our sincere honor to be able to assist the Pelotonia riders and, ultimately, the researchers and the staff of The James in their important work to end cancer,” Covelli said.
Covelli’s company opened a Panera Bread in February 2016 next to The James Comprehensive Cancer Center, on the campus of the Ohio State University Medical Center.
In addition to the physical demands of the ride, Matt and Melanie said they know the ride will also be emotional. “It’s been an emotional year for us. We were married earlier this year and it was tough my mom wasn’t there,” Matt said.
Melanie said she never met Paula, but recognizes they have a great deal in common.
Paula worked for 22 years as a registered nurse for The Ohio State University Medical Center; Melanie is also a registered nurse at OSU. “I know she was a great woman and very caring and she was too young to have died,” Melanie said.
All of the money raised from Pelotonia will be donated to The James to help fuel strategies that prevent, better treat – and some day – cure cancer.
Steve Clifton pictured above
Like Melanie and Matt, Steve Clifton’s ride is also fueled by a desire to help others
escape cancer that claimed the lives of so many of his family members. “My mother
never knew her father because he died of cancer when she was just two months old, and my Dad’s father died of cancer when I was 8” Steve said. “I never got to know either of my grandfathers because of cancer.”
Unfortunately, that’s not all. Steve said cancer claimed his wife’s grandmother, to whom she was very close, a year before they were to be married.
“Needless to say, as a descendant of numerous cancer victims from both sides of my and my wife’s families, I am very passionate about what Pelotonia stands for: End Cancer,” Steve said.
Steve’s journey is also being supported by the Covelli-Panera Receipts for Riders
program which has already donated about $600 of his $2,000 fundraising goal for his
100-mile ride. So far, he has turned in 170 receipts to Panera Bread, with plans to keep going until the deadline of Sept. 30.
Steve, who works at Cardinal Health, said he was concerned that he would be asking Panera for too much support. “They told me not to worry about how many receipts I turned in – the more the better. They told me there was no limit,” he said.