C-Fam Takes Top Honors at Best Buddies DC Challenge

By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D. | 2014

Photo courtesy of Best Buddies

NEW YORK, October 31 (C-Fam) The cycling team formed by C-Fam won the Citizen’s Cup at the Best Buddies DC Challenge bike ride just completed in Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia.

The Citizen’s Cup honors the non-corporate team that raises the most money for the charity that benefits those with Down syndrome and other intellectual disabilities.

Team Brendan Kelly/C-Fam raised $85,000, more than such major corporations as Silicon Valley Bank, National Geographic, and Rosetta Stone, as well as besting total funds raised by a team formed around Tour de France champion George Hincapie.

In fact, Team Brendan Kelly/C-Fam came in second of all teams and was beaten only by the car company Audi that raised $97,000.

Three Brendan Kelly/C-Fam team members were among the top four individuals for the whole event. C-Fam president Austin Ruse came in second with $31,203, Maggie Barket was third with $26,350, while Shannen Coffin came in fourth with $22,910.

This was the fourth year in a row that Austin Ruse has come in second in the overall individual fundraising. He said, “There is always some rich guy who beats me.”

Ruse also took top honors by finishing first in the 100-kilometer (62 miles) ride with a time of 3 hours 30 minutes.

Friday Fax readers will know that every year Ruse has promised his donors, drawn overwhelmingly from the Friday Fax list, that if he came in first in fundraising he would be invited to make a speech and that it would be a pro-life speech. Though he came in second again this year, Best Buddies chairman Anthony Shriver, the grandson of President John Kennedy, invited Ruse to speak to the crowd at the awards ceremony.

He told the crowd, “We ride for those with intellectual disabilities. We ride also for those who are not with us today because a pre-natal diagnosis of Down syndrome meant they would never make it out of the womb. Upwards of 90% of children so diagnosed are never born. What people do not know is that those with Down syndrome are sent to us by God to teach us how to love. Best Buddies helps women who receive that diagnosis to make the right choice.”

This year the team changed its name to include the name Brendan Kelly who was a boy with Down syndrome who suffered his whole life with leukemia yet who touched many lives and brought many to love Jesus Christ and His Church.

Prior to the race, the National Catholic Register published a story about Team Brendan Kelly/C-Fam and told the story of how a friend of Brendan’s father who was under terrorist attack in a Mumbai hotel actually took a moment to call Brendan’s father to ask for Brendan’s prayers. The man was saved.

So moved by the story, Anthony Shriver mentioned Brendan from the stage and sent the National Catholic Register story to the entire Best Buddies mailing list.

Best Buddies is an international charity founded 25 years ago by Shriver in his dorm room at Georgetown University. The charity teaches children and adults how to become friends with those with intellectual disabilities. Best Buddies forms chapters in schools, and also encourages corporations to hire those with Down syndrome.

The Shriver family is no stranger to this kind of work. Anthony’s mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, a devout and pro-life Catholic, founded the Special Olympics. Shriver’s father, Sargent, founded the Peace Corp and was also a devout Catholic.

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