Cycling Without Age - Mississauga

 For our third year in operation, this was an exciting year for CWAM as we spread our rides between the two Verve facilities in Port Credit, our original home at Port Credit Residences (championed there by Lifestyle Enrichment Manager, Justine Beard) and The Shores of Port Credit west of Mississauga Road also on Lakeshore.  Lifestyle Enrichment Manager, Eryn Perrow, was one of our first passengers in 2024 with her grandmother who is also a resident there.  Both the General Managers of the homes, Parry Lawrence (PCR) and Neil Montalban (SoPC) were also very supportive of our program. With Rakesh co-piloting out of Shores As in 2024, this year we assigned Tuesdays and Thursdays of the week for rides (leaving me a two and a half day work week at the hospital reserving Wednesday evenings for our grandsons!), moving the trishaw between the homes as we worked out which schedule would allow us to provide meaningful coverage without too much shuttling.  We also created alt...

 Earlier in the year I got an email from Jane Williams-Hu, the national co-ordinator for Cycling Without Age - Canada to forward a listing to our mailing list for Ontario Chapters for a (sparingly) used AMI model trishaw that was coming up for a private sale in Ontario. The trishaw was purchased privately by a Brantford businessman to provide rides for his mother, Marybelle, who was in a retirement home in Burlington.  Unfortunately, she passed away earlier this year and the forlorn trishaw named after her was a constant reminder of her passing.  He hoped it could bring as much joy as it brought her and so wanted to pay it forward. As we were discussing the possibility of adding to our fleet, we thought we should put in a bid for this vehicle which was similar to the one we had already acquired directly from the manufacturer and so approached the vendor with an offer of paying $5,000 in cash and providing a tax receipt for the balance of the amount that he had requested ...

 We are utilising the convenient features of the Zeffy platform to provide our donors and supporters with the opportunity to help bring the first wheelchair trishaw to Mississauga. The aim is over the next six months to raise half the cost of purchasing this incredible machine that will give wheelchair bound passengers the chance for 'wind in their hair' by taking them out for a ride along safe and scenic trails in Mississauga. We chose the Zeffy platform as they assure we will receive 100% of donor funds.  They do have a field where you can support their platform with a percentage or dollar amount but this is completely optional. We also have a corporate donor who is matching all funds raised dollar for dollar so your donation goes further than double the cash value as you will also receive a tax receipt for the same. If you choose to enter our premium monthly draw for top donors of $100 or more, you will be entered into a pool to receive a voucher of almost equivalent valu...

 For our second year of operation, we decided to ride two days of the week, Tuesdays and Thursdays between the two homes we service.  Since the trishaw is housed at Port Credit Residences, we offered them the first and third Tuesday of the month with exceptions for special circumstances or to make up rain date cancellations.  Since we had to transfer the trishaw to Shores of Port Credit, we felt it appropriate to ride there on consecutive ride dates allowing for changes as needed so their rides would fall on the Thursday following the first Tuesday of the month and then following Tuesday after the weekend.  It didn't always work out but that was the plan. We would keep the other ride days for special events (other homes bringing their residents down to Port Credit for rides) make up days for weather or illness related cancellations as well as scheduling the last Thursday of every month for public rides in the Port Credit area.  For the most part it worked out we...

 This page and downloadable PDF document is to help individual passengers as well as facility directors understand the limitations and liabilities of the Cycling Without Age - Mississauga program. Embedded below is the simplified two page Passenger Waiver that needs to be signed prior to taking a ride with CWA-M

One day after a spectacular ride in Port Credit with the Slow Rollers I was chatting with Marah diNola who had trained as a pilot with our program.  She has an effervescent personality and everyone loves being around her.  Out of the blue she stated "you should get the Phil Green award" next year.  I laughed at the notion and retorted that there were many other better candidates than me for the prestigious award that recognizes a leader in the field of cycling and bike infrastructure in the City of Mississauga. In 2003 the City of Mississauga created the Phil Green Recognition Award in “in recognition of the outstanding work done by Mr Phil Green in promoting safe cycling and sustainable transportation in Mississauga”. Mr. Green created and was the first chair of the Mississauga Cycling Advisory Committee in Mississauga. The Phil Green Recognition Award is presented annually by the Mississauga Cycling Advisory Committee to a person or persons who have demonstrated exempla...