Cyclists bike across New York state to raise money for seeing eye dog training school
EAST ISLIP, Long Island (WABC) -- A group of local cyclists are taking part in a week-long ride across New York state, all for a great cause involving puppies!
A team of eight Long Island athletes departed from Canada Sunday morning as part of an 8-day ride, that will bring them back to Long Island.
That's a roughly 600-mile journey across New York State, equivalent to almost 80 miles a day.
"We're going to bike through into the U.S., down through Albany on the Empire trail, eventually we'll snake our way into Connecticut and then take the ferry over into Port Jefferson," said biker Victor Fassano of Centereach.
"There's a lot of hills and that'll wear us out, but we're good to go with this, we drive ourselves hard for this and we've been doing this for three years," said biker Bill Ude of Mastic.
Puppy Ride Long Island raises money and awareness for 'The Seeing Eye' in Morristown, New Jersey, which is the oldest existing guide dog school in the United States.
"Just the whole concept of 'The Seeing Eye,' where they don't charge any of the recipients anything," said biker David DuBois of Coram. "It's all given to them so, our contribution goes a long way."
This ride for 'The Seeing Eye' is personal for one of the members, Jim Freiss. His late brother John, benefited greatly from his dog hero, and he wanted to honor him.
"He wanted to do something to give back and to promote both that organization and what they do," biker Bill Gironda said. "It gave him confidence to do more things and go more places without having to worry about all the things that somebody that has that handicap would have to do."
You can support the group's efforts via their website.
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