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Despite the gasping cold front on Saturday morning 2 September, about 400 people peddled in pure optimism at this year’s Vusa 24 Hour Cycle Challenge held at the Piley Rees Field at Bishops Diocesan College in Rondebosch.
The challenge is a fundraising event in aid of the Vusa Rugby and Learning Academy, which empowers children from Langa through structured sports, academics, and recreational programmes.
Vusa provides a full bouquet of developmental experiences in the average day of the programme giving children access to extra academics lessons, computer facilities; exposing them to recreational activities, providing a hot meal and of course, access to sport (rugby).
The initiative was started more than 20 years ago by Bishops Prep teacher, Brendan Fogarty, to address the lack of sport at disadvantaged schools.
After the weekend event that ran through to Sunday 3 September, Vusa’s Nikki Matthews said: “We had approximately 400 participants and raised close to R1,1 million! This includes a R50 000 pledge.”
Speaking to the third Cycle Challenge held in Vusa’s name, Kirsty Hatt from Bishops told City Vision, this year’s event allowed younger kids to partake, whereas last year’s event only hosted the college boys and staff.
“The kids all love it, and I mean, look at all the parents!” she exclaimed, pointing to dozens of pedalling adults showing support.
“The younger ages only cycle for 12 hours, while the adults and college boys pedal right through the 24 hours,” Hatt explained.
Lottering said this is what he does for a living, cycling three or four days at a time.
“The event tested my physical limits but I knew that every kilometre I covered offered a brighter future for the children of Langa through donations received.”
His endurance for the full day of cycling was guided by a nutritional diary he had planned for this special challenge, with something to eat sketched out on a pad every half hour or so.
Speaking on top of his own cycling steed was Bishops College Principal, Tony Reeler, adding to the importance behind the festive activities: “It’s all about Vusa, and about supporting Vusa which is an initiative that we’ve had running for a number of years now. They are trying to support children in Langa, mainly through the sport of rugby. But also through a feeding programme and, most importantly, educational support.”
When referring to the bustling turnout of supporters, Reeler added: “It’s absolutely wonderful! It’s a whole school community from our pre-prep to our college, parents, old boys... absolutely wonderful! I just wish to say thank you to all those for their unwavering involvement. This is a thing that started out small, and now look at how massive it’s become,” Reeler concluded with determinated breaths.
The event has improved on its fundraising goals with each passing year. “In 2021, we raised R270 000, last year we raised R500 000 and this year our aim was to raise R700 000 and we reached over R1 million,” Fogarty said.
