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Ride for
Life |
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In what has become an annual event the Ride For Life, along with support from family and friends ride their motorized wheelchairs and scooters to raise money to find a cure for ALS. This year's 175 mile long Ride for Life traveled from Montauk to Manhattan in the course of 10 days. The first Ride for Life started in 1998 with a 325-mile journey from Yankee Stadium to Washington D.C. that spanned 13 days. Over the course of the last 5 years they have raised over a quarter of a million dollars benefiting projects involved in medical research as well for services that benefit those suffering from ALS.
"There is no such thing as a small donation in the fight against ALS," said a grateful Pendergast. Pendergast, from Miller Place, was diagnosed with ALS over eight years ago. He began the Ride For Life as an annual public awareness and fundraising campaign in 1998. Pendergast is a teacher in the Northport-East Northport S.D. where has taught for the last 32 years. He has worked with the children in the Gifted and Talented program both in the district as well as with students from two area parochial schools, Trinity Regional school in East Northport and St. Paul's Lutheran school in Northport. From Smithtown Pendergast continued west stopping at
a Northport middle school and Huntington Town Hall before entering Nassau
County. (Left) Ride for Life Founder, Chris Pendergast is honored in Huntington by Supervisor Frank Petrone, Councilman Mike Capodano and NYS Assemblyman John Flanagan. The first ride began in Yankee Stadium and proceeded to Washington, DC, a 350 mile journey which took fifteen days for the ALS patients riding on disability scooters and electric wheelchairs. ALS is a rapidly progressive and fatal neuromuscular disease, made famous after the famed Yankee first baseman died of the disease in 1941.
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May 2, 2002
On route to a home plate appearance at Yankee
Stadium, Christopher Pendergast and the fifth annual "Ride For
Life" team stopped in Smithtown to raise awareness in the fight
against Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), know more familiarly as Lou
Gehrig's Disease. Supervisor Patrick Vecchio and Councilman Thomas
McCarthy greeted them on May 1 at Town Hall. Vecchio presented a
proclamation and what he called "a small donation" from the
Supervisor and his staff. 
