(Health & Fitness

CHARITABLE

Pedaling For Kids

Team Alex cyclists traverse Israel to aid Alyn pediatric rehab center.

Sharing a table and a laugh together at last in Netanya are Wheels of Love participants David Contorer, Beth Brandvain, Warren and Davida Robinson, Amy and Steve Dunn
and Dorothy Barak.

Beth Brandvain
Special to the Jewish News

R

umors of my addiction to
cycling have been greatly exag-
gerated; or at least misinterpret-
ed. My true addiction is to tikkun olam
(repair of the world) via participation
in biking events that benefit children's
charities.
This past October was my sixth
time participating in Wheels of Love, a
bicycle ride in Israel to benefit the Alyn
Pediatric and Adolescent Rehabilitation
Center in Jerusalem.
Alyn is Israel's only center of its kind
and one of the world's leading special-
ists in active and intensive rehabilita-
tion for children. It specializes in treat-
ing children who are born with birth
defects, sufferers of spinal trauma from
car accidents or victims of terrorism.
It is said that Alyn is a place where the
impossible is possible!

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December 16 • 2010

Wheels of Love ride participants from
Metro Detroit also included Dorothy
Barak of West Bloomfield, David
Contorer of Huntington Woods, Amy
and Steve Dunn of Bloomfield Hills
and Davida and Warren Robinson of
Franklin. We all ride together as mem-
bers of Team Alex.
As a group, we trained, spread the word
about Alyn and happily raised funds for
the hospital. Once in Israel, lured by the
appeal of different routes for on- and off-
road cyclists, we rode our separate ways.
I opted for the off-road "Enduro"
route. There were rocks, boulders,
mountains, steep downhills, sandy trails
and miles of full sun in the desert. I had
no idea if I would be able to make it up,
down or across any of it.
There was a time when being able to
ride every inch of it would have meant
more to me. Now, I know that it really
isn't about the bike; it wouldn't matter if
I had to do a little walking. What really
mattered were the children who receive

After receiving a medal for his ride, David Contorer engages an Alyn child and the
child's mother.

treatment at Alyn.
So while I was having fun falling off
of my bike, the children at Alyn were

receiving the advanced treatments
that could only be paid for through the
money raised from the ride.