The South Cowichan Rotary Club received a cheque for $17,168 from the BC Masters Cycling Association on Oct. 5.
Gay Wise, president of the Rotary Club and a member of the now inactive BCMCA, said the money will be used to fund local community projects in recognition of the many contributions of Tony Hoar, her husband and the founding president of the BCMCA who died three years ago on Oct. 5 at the age of 87, to cycling and to the Cowichan Valley community.
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“In the current economic climate, there are new challenges to fundraising,” Wise said.
“Without the financial resources we have depended on in the past, it is becoming difficult for our Rotary Club to fulfill its mandate of community service. The BCMCA has been looking for a way to use the funds they have left in the bank in a way that will recognize our founding president, Tony Hoar. I have approached the BCMCA’s president and requested those funds be donated to the South Cowichan Rotary Club for use in a service project, or projects, in the Cowichan Valley.”
Hoar, who rode in the Tour de France in 1955, was the president of the BCMCA from its founding in 1989 to well over half of the life of the association.
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Hoar had a small business, Tony’s Trailers, in the Cowichan Valley that designed and built trailers to be pulled behind bicycles.
He made many custom models; including a tent trailer for use by the homeless and grocery shoppers, and a trailer that could have a wheelchair rolled onto it for people with disabilities who needed the accommodation for their wheelchair.
Hoar did all of the design, metal cutting and welding himself, and every trailer was built to the client’s individual requirements.
In fact, he designed and built the wheelchair in which Rick Hansen began his round-the-world journey.
“Tony and I were founding members of the BCMCA while we were living in Campbell River,” Wise said.
“The group that assembled in 1989 at that founding meeting in The Village Green Hotel in Duncan consisted of Ken Paskin, a former mayor of Duncan and his wife Evelyn Paskin, Gerhardt Rapps from the Lower Mainland, Tony and myself. Over the years, a war chest of about $20,000 was accumulated. About $17,000 remained and that was donated to the Rotary Club.”
robert.barron@cowichanvalleycitizen.com
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