Join TFS in supporting the Challenged Athletes Foundation!
Posted February 18th, 2007 at 2:14 PM by Allyson Rosen
Section: Announcements, Motivation, Resources
TheFinalSprint.com is proud to be an official sponsor of the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF).
CAF is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that helps people with physical disabilities pursue an active lifestyle through physical fitness and athletics.
CAF’s mission is clear: give those with the desire to live active, competitive lifestyles every opportunity to compete in the sports they love.
Click here to learn more and to watch a short video about how CAF is changing the lives of athletes with disabilities!
Join us in supporting CAF!
Make your next race more meaningful by registering for the Challenged Athlete Foundation’s Race for a Reason!
Race for a Reason enables you to enhance the experience of training to reach your own personal goal by helping challenged athletes reach theirs. When you raise funds for CAF through the Race for a Reason program, you can run the race of your choice and also earn great incentive prizes!
You can feel safe that funds you raise will directly assist challenged athletes around the world. Based on their most recent audited financial statement, 89 cents of every dollar raised is used by CAF to support its athletes. The funds you raise will change lives by paying for handcycles, sportschairs, running prosthetics, training and competition expenses for physically challenged athletes.
CAF makes fundraising easy! Sign up, and you’ll receive:
- Your own official fundraising web-page
- An easy to follow fundraising kit
- Inspirational emails
- A cool Race For A Reason technical training shirt
- An opportunity to earn incentive prizes!
Getting started is simple:
Click here, fill in the online registration form and pay the $25 registration fee.
CAF will then send you your password for your own fundraising web page, where you can create a customized page and email all your friends and family about your goals - the exciting event you’re participating in and why you’re raising money for CAF.
CHALLENGED ATHLETES FOUNDATION
Recognizing courage.
Rewarding perseverance.
Realizing dreams.
There’s a place on the Southern California coastline where courage has many faces … a home for heroes where perseverance comes through the door with a first name … a caring organization where dreams are nourished and brave hearts strive daily to reach lofty goals. This place is unlike any other in the world. This is the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF).
How Did It Begin?
CAF grew out of a desire to assist one athlete – trailblazing below-knee-amputee endurance racer Jim MacLaren – who suffered a devastating second accident while competing in a triathlon. Hit by a car during the bike leg, Jim was paralyzed from the neck down. His many friends quickly decided to raise funds for his recovery, and organized the first San Diego Triathlon Challenge (SDTC) – an annual fundraising triathlon event at La Jolla Cove. From this modest beginning arose a more important mission – to make sure that people with physical challenges have the same freedom to enjoy sports that the rest of us take for granted.
How Do They Help?
Since 1994, CAF has raised more than $11 million – allowing the Foundation to satisfy thousands of funding requests from challenged athletes in all 50 states and dozens of countries. Eighty-two cents of every dollar raised by CAF provides funding, programs and a growing endowment fund that is getting challenged athletes into the game - and will continue to do so into the future.. Whether it’s a $2,000 handcycle, helping underwrite a $15,000 running prosthetic or arranging enthusiastic encouragement from a mentor who has triumphed over a similar injury, CAF’s mission is clear: give those with the desire to live active, competitive lifestyles every opportunity to compete in the sports they love. At the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece 45 of the 235 participating U.S. athletes (almost 20 percent) were supported by CAF. More recently at the 2006 Winter Paralympic Games in Torino, Itlay, CAF supported 23 of the 56 (41 percent) participating U.S. athletes.
What Still Needs to Be Done?
Sadly, despite our best efforts, many physically challenged athletes still remain on the sidelines. It is only through the hard work of our fundraisers, the generosity of our donors and the assistance of our corporate sponsors that CAF is able to continue fulfilling its unique mission. Their contributions give ever-growing numbers of challenged athletes a fair chance to realize their dreams, and breathe life into the stories of hearts and heroes, of inspiration and perspiration, of raw courage and “never-quit” attitudes that flow from CAF’s charitable efforts.
Why do Challenged Athletes Need Funding?
There are 35 million people living with a physical challenge in the United States. Equipment that allows these individuals to engage in active lifestyles is very expensive –in fact, for many, it’s cost-prohibitive. A single handcycle runs upwards of $2,000 and adaptive training and competition expenses can make moving to the “next level” of athletic performance an insurmountable barrier for many challenged athletes. Funding provided by CAF helps make it possible for more physically challenged people to gain access to this equipment and to the enhanced self-esteem that comes from participation in sports. To ensure these needs are met in perpetuity, CAF has worked hard over its first decade to build and grow an endowment fund that will continue to assist physically challenged athletes indefinitely.
Who represents the Challenged Athletes Foundation?
Thousands of courageous individuals who struggle to find their place in the world as physically challenged men and women find solace in competitive, active lifestyles that make each day more fulfilling.
The Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) was created to assist these most deserving athletes. Thanks to the generous gifts and support of CAF donors and corporate sponsors, the Foundation helps these heroes by funding much-needed special equipment, training, and mentoring – breathing life into their individual hopes, aspirations and dreams.
As spokespeople for CAF, the following athletes’ courage to compete in sports has led them to find success in their lives. From that success, they’ve enriched the lives of other challenged athletes and inspired the world.
Read their compelling stories:
- Rudy Garcia-Tolson
- Tricia Downing
- Paul Martin
- Carlos Moleda
- Sarah Reinertsen
- Major David Rozelle
- Willie Stewart
- Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah
Click here to listen to The Final Sprint’s audio interview with Rudy Garcia-Tolson., the CAF spokesperson and our December 2006 “Success Story”.
For more information on the Challenged Athletes Foundation, call (858)-866-0959 or send an email to: info@challengedathletes.org
***Note: We encourage EVERYONE to see a doctor before altering their diet, taking a supplement and/or performing athletic, fitness or other strenuous physical activity. It is your responsibility to evaluate the accuracy, completeness and usefulness of any information, instruction, opinion or advice contained in the content. Please also see our complete disclaimer.***
Tags: CAF, Carlos Moleda, challenged athletes foundation, charity, disability, disabled, Emmanuel Ofosu, Major David Rozelle, Paul Martin, physical disability, race for a reason, raise money, Rudy Garcia Tolson, Sarah Reinertsen, sponsor, support, Tricia Downing, Willie Stewart
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