UPDATE: Team Parker has reached $250,000 in lifetime fundraising! However, you can still donate until August 31, 2025. Thank you to everyone who helped us reach our goal.
I met Jon Caldara, president of Independence Insitute in 2000 when I started doing volunteer graphic design for II. Jon quickly offered me a contract position and an office in their suite. It was only a few months later when I heard from one of my colleagues that Jon’s infant daughter, Parker, was very sick. It was cancer, and it was bad, really bad. In fact, it turned out to be incurable and Parker was not going to survive. I had a hard time wrapping my head around that prognosis. In my experience, when someone received a cancer diagnosis, they just got surgery and maybe some chemo and that fixed the problem. My grandfather—who worked for many years at an asbestos company and smoked from age 15—had bladder cancer, kidney cancer, and colon cancer and he was still going strong. So hearing that this adorable little girl was not going to beat her cancer, was just unthinkable and heartbreaking.
I could not even imagine the pain and helplessness that Jon and Parker’s mother, Mara, were going through. Somehow, they both managed to survive and went on to have two more children together, Piper and Chance.
In 2007, I was recruited by a friend to ride with Team Westword in the Courage Classic, a bike tour in the mountains of Colorado that raises money for Children’s Hospital, the very place where Parker received her diagnosis and care. Children’s Hospital is also the place where Parker’s brother Chance, who has Down’s Syndrome, has had multiple surgeries. For the first few years, I rode with Team Westword and wore a bib dedicating my ride to Parker. In 2010, I officially formed Team Parker to honor Parker’s memory.
My colleagues from II, Damon Sasso and Amy Oliver Cooke, joined the team as riders, Hilleary Waters joined as a volunteer. Even Jon Caldara himself has ridden with us a few times. With the weight loss from his post-heart-attack diet of kale and celery, it should be much easier for him to haul his new svelte figure over the mountain passes this year, made even easier when riding an e-bike (his secret is safe with me.)
This year’s Courage Classic will be from July 19th-20th and will be my 19th year riding. I am just shy of $96,000 in fundraising. This year, I’m hoping to reach the $100,000 milestone. Team Parker has raised more than $230,000 cumulatively and we are shooting for $20,000+ in donations to bring our total to a quarter of a million dollars raised for Children’s Hospital. Not too shabby for a bunch of rag-tag freedom fighters!
Please consider donating directly to one of the riders of Team Parker, see the list below. Donations to individuals are applied to our team total but also help our riders meet their $500 donation minimums.
We really appreciate your support. Pedal on!
STAFF MEMBERS WHO ARE RIDING (click on name to donate)
- Tracy Kimball Smith, Captain of Team Parker, Independence Institute Creative Labs
- Jon Caldara, President
- Damon Sasso, VP of Operations
- Amy Cooke, Director Energy Policy Center
THE REST OF OUR TEAM
- Robert Wickwar
- Aaron Svoboda
- Ari Svoboda (our youngest rider! Age 6)
- Roger Bohnhoff
- Jonathan Perkins
- Kutter Calloway
If you would like to read more posts about Jon, Parker, Chance, and the Courage Classic, see below:
