Tour DaVita Diary

Day One (Sheffield, Ala.)

Two hundred and eleven riders lined up early Tuesday morning in Sheffield, Ala., to start the ride. We had raised almost $600,000 in this inaugural event to raise awareness and education about kidney disease. Riders in their green and orange Tour DaVita jerseys rode around adjusting their bikes while a band played “Sweet HomeAlabama” and other songs recorded here in the Tri-Cities area.

At the kickoff event, Senior Vice President Gina Randolph shared with the group that this was her first event of this kind. She hadn’t been on a bike since she was a child, but when she heard the ride was starting in her territory, she decided she had to participate. Her longest ride to date was 18 miles, but she was going to see what she could do.

Both Bill Shoemaker, the mayor of Tuscumbia, and Billy Don Anderson, the mayor of Sheffield, greeted the riders, as well as Councilman Bobby Mitchell. Mayor Anderson joked that he wanted to ride with us but when he put on his spandex bike shorts, they didn’t “spand” enough to cover him. Gina presented a check for $1,000 to Helen Keller Hospital CEO Anderson, where the DaVita Sheffield Dialysis clinic is located, as a donation to their Keller Foundation. Many riders took the opportunity to visit with the patients at the Sheffield clinic, which serves over 100 people.

Kent Thiry (KT) kicked off the ride with a discussion about the spirit of the ride – where the idea came from, what we hope to accomplish, and what we hope to remember. We started a new cheer: We will create the spirit of the ride, we will respect the spirit of the ride, and we will remember the spirit of the ride. Then, with KT at the front of the pack of 211, we held a cheer of “One for All and All for One” and took off, with a police escort, to the Natchez Trace.

The riders covered over 52 miles of beautiful scenery. We passed a church with a “Welcome, Riders” sign. One group stopped on a front lawn for a break. The owner came out of the house and offered the group ice water—welcome in the Alabama humidity. Many riders set personal records, including Gina who rode 40 miles.

The ride stopped in Collinwood, Tenn.—population 1,024. The city council had distributed flyers promoting the ride. According to the council, the flyers were put up all over. When the riders got to town, Main Street was lined with townspeople. DaVita VP Paul Dorsa said it looked like the Tour de France, with the street overflowing with cheering fans. As the riders approached CollinwoodHigh School, where we were spending the night, the football team rushed over to cheer. At the school entrance, the high school band played while the cheerleaders danced.

Riders barely had time to take a quick shower and find their tent on the tent city created on the football field before they assembled in the school gym. There they met the cheerleaders and members of the high school honor society. We broke into fifty teams and assembled brand new children’s bicycles. We then talked for a bit about working together as teams and how that felt. Our customers were then revealed to us—50 children chosen by the local Boys & Girls Club from low-income families. The joy on the children’s faces was incredible to see. One little girl, not sure of her good luck, asked if this bike could be her birthday present. A father brought over his daughter and told her, “You should say thanks since you now don’t have to walk fifteen miles a day like I do.” We discovered that he didn’t have a car and had to walk to work every day. We had an extra adult-sized bike and gave it to him.

The good feelings of the night were not over yet. First, KT told us that a group of teammates from a nearby clinic had spent the whole day at the school, landscaping and painting. Then we donated athletic supplies, a check for $1,000 and a full-sized dryer to the football coach.

The football coach had allowed us to pitch our tents on his field. The school is very proud of their team, which could make the state playoffs this year. However, their dryer was broken so the coach was taking the uniforms home to dry in his own personal dryer. When he unwrapped our gift, he was so overcome that he could not speak for a full minute. He joked, “It’s hard to believe someone can get so choked up about a dryer. But you don’t understand. This is something that we needed that we just couldn’t get.” He explained that they would have let us stay at the school for nothing—just to help out. He explained that he had coached these kids since grade school and now they were seniors. He told us we couldn’t know the full impact we had made on the community. He closed with a parting shot to watch out for armadillos on the football field.

Day Two (Lawrenceville, Tenn.)

Day Two dawned bright and early with revelry at 6 a.m., and we rush to head out of the high school before the school buses arrived with the kids. After breakfast provided by the local chapter of the American Legion, we got back on our bikes. Today would be a relatively light 30 miles, with an option to add the 40 mile round trip spur to the Lawrenceville clinic and back. (Most of us decided to skip the spur and take the shuttle.)

The Trace was beautiful in the morning and we had it all to ourselves. Shady tree lined avenues opened up to fields of quiet cattle. The cooler temperature and confidence from completing yesterday showed in people arriving at the end spot almost an hour earlier than scheduled. Luckily, the clinic was able to speed up their preparations to welcome the riders in style.

Again, we were welcomed by the local high school band. This group had learned “Old Time Rock and Roll” in honor of KT’s visit. At the noon program, DaVita nurse Diane Brannon talked about her personal experience with kidney disease. She had reunited with her first love many years later, marrying him last year. Then they discovered he had kidney disease. He did in-center hemodialysis and then moved to home hemodialysis, but he was not doing well. Determined not to lose him so soon after finding him again, she got tested as a donor. She was such a compatible match that her friends joked that she and her husband must be brother and sister. Her husband received his transplant last spring and is now doing well. Everyone gave her a standing ovation. Several patients also spoke about the care they receive at the Lawrenceburg center. Lawrenceburg mayor Keith Durham and State Rep. Joey Hensley also addressed the crowd.

Then it was back on the bikes for a scenic ride to the NACO campgrounds in Hohenwald Tennessee.  Everyone arrived by early afternoon, so there was plenty of time for swimming in the lake, playing volleyball, tossing a football or relaxing.

In the evening, a light rain started to fall but that couldn’t dampen the spirit of the ride. We listed to country singer Michael Peterson, who donated his fee for the night to the Kidney TRUST. He played some of his hit music but also spent time talking to us about following your passion—making the work that you do part of the impact that you make on this world. He found a receptive audience, and all cheered when Senior Vice President Steve Priest made Michael and honorary member of the DaVitaVillage by having him cross an imaginary bridge.

Some hard-core folks clustered around the campfire for a sing-a-long, but everyone else turned in early to prepare for Day Three—the longest day, 80 miles.