TorchesAcrossAmerica

Torches Across America (TAA) is a motorcycle ride for all riders who want to show their respect to everyone who lost their lives and to the family's who lost their loved ones on that sad morning of September 11, 2001. TAA takes nine days, starting on the West Coast (Sept 3rd). Ride the whole trip, just through your state or a few miles when it comes in your area. If you can not take time to ride on the ride, everyone is welcome to be with us at any of the stops we make going across the country.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

E-mail from Kevin Sweet who has just got out of the military and would like to be a part of TAA. We do not have officers we do have state coordinators

Hi,
Does this organizations have officers?
Do you have National officers - I just got out of the military and very
interested in becoming part of the team.
thanks
Kevin

My reply to Kevin;

Hi Kevin Sweet,

Thank you very much for your e-mail.

I know everyone that is involved with Torches Across America would be proud to read your e-mail also. So I am going to share it with them.

So where are you living now that you are out of the USMC?

Torches Across America 9/11 Memorial Motorcycle Ride is just riders that ride the whole ride across America or just a few miles with us as we go through their area.

Torches Across America is not a ride for any charity. Money that is made by selling shirts, pins and patches go back into the cost of these items and if there is money left over it goes into other cost for the ride like the memorial walls we take with us and set up at every stop.

We have hosts that do something special for the riders in each of the cities we stop in.

We also have state coordinators in some states that help set things up with riders in their state and if there is a host in their state they also try and help them.

A state coordinators contacts as many motorcycle clubs and organization in their state as possible and lets them know about the ride. If any of them want to be a part of the ride the state coordinator makes sure we all meet up at the right time.

The state coordinator also helps a host if they are in his state by doing some of these things;

Contact any relatives of the 9/11 victims and see if they would like to be present so we can say something to them and they can speak to the riders.

Contact any active Armed Forces members in that area that would like to be present so we can say thank you to them.

Contact any family members of an Armed Forces member that was killed so they can be with us for we can tell them how much we appreciate them for their sacrifice.

Contact First Call Responders in the area and ask them to be present for we can say thank you to them.

We have other super people and riders that help in anyway they can. One person that comes to mind from the early days of the ride is Carol Lemons from Amarillo,TX. She offered to help any of the riders with information about the Amarillo area if they wanted it. I do not know much about Amarillo but with her help,riders could find out what they needed to know.

Carol has been very sick the past few year but she still offers to help TAA in anyway she can.

There are so many people like Carol that help TAA and I hope the ones I did not mention forgive me for not putting their names down at this time.

A goal we have set for the Torches Across America Ride is to get 9/11 to become a National Recognition Day for America's First Call Responders. Some of them thought it was going to happen after 9/11 but it did not.

Thanks to one of Kingman,AZ Mayors (Monica Gates), cities have followed her lead by passing a resolution making 9/11 a "Recognition Day" for their cities First Call Responders.

We have super state coordinators, host and riders. That is what makes being a part of TAA something special to me. It shows people can still come together for a great cause and money does not have to be in its center focus. The TAA ride is just from the heart.

A society in this world can not exist without a heart and people that help put TAA together and the riders on it have super big hearts.

The TAA ride does not have big name super stars on it and I do not know why. What I do know is that some rides do and the big stars expect them to pay for their expenses because of the use of their names to generate money for their cause.

So I guess you could say we are the ride from across the tracks or just a plain Jane ride that has a super big heart.

If you would like to be a part of TAA we would love to have you.

Have a great day.
Gary Covert

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Interesting to know.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008 7:00:00 AM  

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