Happy Monday everyone! I have such a special story to share with you today, that’s is sure to brighten up your day! A few weeks ago when we shared that we were looking for little leaders to feature on our site we had so many amazing stories come through!
The Davis’ story in particular really warmed my heart and quite frankly made me and all of the girls shed a few tears. Today, I am so excited to welcome The Davis family to the blog today to share their amazing story!!
When we saw the ad for the Great Canadian Cycle Challenge back in the beginning of July our first thought was that it would be something that would be fun to do as a family, something to take our minds off the whole chaos of the world! Boost moral! So when we set out we had a goal of 200kms and $200, that was what Kolten picked as a target for us and we gladly took on the challenge! This foundation struck our interest because it was to deal with children, being a mom of 2 small boys (Kolten 3, Keegan 2) it really hit close to home!
July 31 hit, Kolten, age 3, was getting so excited to start his journey, but that evening he cracked his head open and ended up in the hospital getting 3 stitches. As parents, we thought that it wasn’t the best idea for him to wear a helmet and be riding due to where the stitches were as we didn’t want them rubbing, getting infected, or getting ripped out, so every time he asked us we had to tell him no and you knew that broke his heart!
August 5th hit, after being asked multiple times a day I finally agreed that we could go out for a ride IF he could get his helmet on by himself, he winced in pain but he did it! Turned to me and said “see mom, I got this, lets go ride for the kids that are sick” and that’s when this whole journey started!
When we originally set the goals I didn’t think that we would even get $200, the economy wasn’t the best, people were focused on Covid, and we didn’t want to push. But we put it out on Social Media and within 3 hours he had met his goal! Tackling the paths in Okotoks and area, we would get stopped all the time. “Oh my gosh, he’s so small and going so fast!”, “His jersey is so cute, what does it say?”, “Look at his legs go!”. And that’s when the community got to know Kolten! He was getting cheered on during his rides and he was loving every minute of it!
Once we hit over $1000 I thought, ok let’s make this a bit bigger what can we do to really make a splash?! So we called in the big guys! We contacted Bikers Are Buddies asking them if they would be interested in doing a ride with Kolten, they were so excited to be apart of it. On Aug 27th motorbikes (plus extras that weren’t apart of the BAB crew), 8 beacon trucks not to mention friends and family that followed behind as well as 2 fellow GCCC riders who were also fundraising! BAB was blocking off the street for Kolten letting him lead the way! He was SO proud! that night we hit $2500! The BAB is such an amazing group and they were so kind to Kolten, giving him a patch, telling him that he was “one of them now”. Once we got to our final location for the night, Kolten went up to the President of the group and asked him “How come you couldn’t keep up? Did you have your slow gas?” and he had all the bikers chuckling.
After we hit $2500 I thought, we need to call in reinforcement, the big guns, everyone’s hero for his last 5kms. So we called upon Batman!! He goes by the name Holy Batman and he is based out of Calgary but that man was incredible! By the time the day came that we were going to ride with Batman, Kolten was at $4500!! When Batman rolled in for our final ride with his batmobile all decked out and joined Kolten, the team from Restorative Sports Therapy, a few riders from the Calgary BMX Club as well as friends and family. Everyone was smiling and Kolten kept saying “Mom, did batman really come for me?!”
Throughout the month of August, Kolten would go out and ride with me, his mom, (Tasha Davis) 8-10Kms at a time. But when dad, Matthew Davis, had a day off would tackle 22-24kms at a time, and each time we did that we would send out a message over social media saying “If you see this little dude riding, give him a thumbs-up, honk or tell him good job!” and we would explain what we were doing. Well, one afternoon I received a message from the Trustee of Bar None Ranches Memorial Foundation saying that Kolten inspired them and they wanted to MATCH his total $ amount that he raised up to $5000! So Kolten is currently at over $10,000 raised for the Sick Kids Foundation for kids battling cancer!
This whole experience has been so very rewarding for not only Matthew and myself as parents but it has been a great influence on Kolten. I asked him one night while I was tucking him in bed “Do you know why you are riding your bike buddy?” his response “For sick kids mom, you are sad when I am sick so maybe if I get lots of monies it will make the mommies of the sick kids happier?”
So on that note, I can proudly say that we as parents learned a valuable lesson, that no matter what comes our way, we are never alone. That somewhere out there … there is a little human like Kolten who is in our court cheering us on! If you are wanting to make a donation you can do so here! It does say $5040 as we needed to do a bit of extra leg work for the donation from the foundation so that will be added later on next week!!
Love,
Tasha, Matthew, Kolten & Keegan Davis xo
Your friends and community are so very proud of YOU, Kolten!!! You are an inspiration and have encouraged us all to go a little further and give a little more ❤️ Thank you sharing this incredible journey!