American Legion Riders
Ride for Vets, Pets and Kids
On Sunday, September 11, the American Legion Riders based out of Oneonta, had their Legacy Run.
“We do four to five runs a year,” said Chris Chase, Director of American Legion Riders. “We raise money for vets, pets or kids,” he said.
Every year they hold the Legacy Run on or around 9/11. “The American Legion Riders have a scholarship fund for kids of veterans who have passed away, or are 50% or more disabled since 9/11,” he said.
“We usually donate around $10,000. We used to send the entire amount to national, but now we keep 50% of it to make sure local kids get it,” he said. “We started noticing no kids in New York got a scholarship so we changed our procedure. Now we are sure the money stays in our area; Otsego, Delaware and Chenango counties.”
“We have a lot of women and a lot of couples who ride in our events. Anyone can ride, whether you have a motorcycle, car, truck, old classic car,” Mr. Chase said. “The route is about 100 miles. We’ve been doing this event for about five years.”
When Mr. Chases isn’t organizing rides, he is the CEO of Directive. “We do IT, web design and marketing. We have four companies; an IT company, a marketing agency, a software company and a media company,” he said.
Since COVID, the number of riders are down. “We normally range from 100 to 250 motorcycle riders.
“607 Coal Rollers were riding with us. These are all diesel trucks from within the 607 area code,” he said.
“This is the one run of the year where we team up with another motorcycle group called The Red Knights 44 out of Laurens. They are a sister motorcycle group; we do a lot of runs with them and help each other out,” Mr. Chase said.
There are about 35 – 40 members in the American Legion Riders. For more info, go to www.alrpost259.org.