Rockdale group to host 100-mile motorcycle ride for people with disabilities

The Bad To The Bone Riders of Rockdale are hosting its 23rd Annual M.A.R.C. Ride Saturday to raise money for the Milam Adult Resource Center.

• The M.A.R.C. Ride is a fundraiser where members of the motorcyclist community ride 100-miles across Milam County, stopping at different bars and selling barbecue and t-shirts to raise money.
• The group has raised more than $436,000 for the Milam Adult Resource Center, which serves people living with disabilities.
• The center has been able to expand its building, purchase a van, remodel bathrooms, get new flooring, and pay for camps and other activities.
• The M.A.R.C. Ride starts Saturday at 9 a.m. at The Ranch in Rockdale.

BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Spencer Steven has been going to the Milam Adult Resource Center in Rockdale since the 70s.

"I like it out here," he said.

The center supports adults with special needs.

But it wouldn't be possible without the help from the annual M.A.R.C. Ride.

"Well, it originally started out with just six or seven guys sitting around and they all back in those days, they just, they love to ride and it was all about the ride if they raised a little bit of money, so be it," Organizer Charles Starr said. "They couldn't figure out what they wanted to do with that money whenever they got back... somebody spoke up and said, 'Well, The Marc center don't get hardly any support at all.'"

That 100-mile motorcycle ride across Milam County has raised more than $436,000.

Organizer Charles Starr tells me it's their 23rd year hosting.

But his passion is personal.

"My youngest stepdaughter is a consumer here," Starr said.

That's what support staff tell me its all about at the center on Pecos Avenue.

"What we do, all three of us, we strive to make these guys' lives better every day," Wanda Downey, a direct support professional, said.

So far, the group has funded transportation, facility expansions, camps and basketball courts — all for our neighbors.

"I don't think they would have as many opportunities to go out in the community if we didn't have receipts from the long run," she said.

Starr says he hoping to beat last year's record of $56,000.

"This is where it gets a little emotional because if you could be here when we ride by on the ride in the morning and see the enjoyment of the consumers on their face whenever they're out here hooping and hollering and having big signs made, 'Thank y'all for what y'all do for us.' I ought to be paying them," Starr said.