Charity

We ride for SOS Children's Villages, a world wide charity that supports orphaned and abandoned children in 122 countries around the world.

Having travelled in developing countries, the plight of many children on the street was something that never faded. Back home we looked into finding a children's charity that we wanted to support and found that SOS Children's Villages had its UK headquarters in Cambridge, only five minutes away from where we lived.

We met up with Daniel Fox, the SOS UK Chief Executive and told him of our Around the World Guinness World Record Ride and that we would like to use the event to raise funds for SOS.

He explained to us the SOS concept: SOS Children's Villages revolve around the effort to give children who have lost their parents or who are no longer able to live with them a permanent home and a stable environment. The SOS Children's Village family-like structure is formed by four basic principles: mother, brothers and sisters, house and village.

After this we visited our first SOS Children's Village in Cusco Peru, when we went there to get married.

What struck us was how carefree the children were, what fun they had playing with the other children in the family and how much they smiled at just the simplest of things – crayons, papers and sweets. The quality of the facilities of the village were also much better than we had thought – with playing areas for the children, brightly painted homes, and school; a stark contrast to the crumbling housing outside. We were shown around a home; the children burst into an impromptu song for us and got very excited to see their faces on our video.

That was the start of our relationship with SOS and we continue to raise money for them with the Trans Americas Guinness Ride. Our total funds raised to date stand at almost £11,000.

Daniel Fox (SOS), Kevin, Julia and David Taylor (Head of Marketing, BMW)

Since then, we have also visited other SOS villages:

Kevin met the children at the village in Adelaide in Australia when he rode there to do some research in 2001.

We started our 2002 Guinness Ride from the SOS Village in Calais and they also signed us in on our return. Just before the start we visited the children who all took it in turns to sit on the bike – it seems that the bike attracts children the world over!

The last visit was to the one in Istanbul in Turkey. Kevin returned to Turkey to meet up with the OMM Riders Club who had assisted us in crossing the Greek/Turkish border on Around the World Ride, as well as riding in convoy with us to Istanbul and beyond. Kevin and Paolo Volpara, President of the OMM went to the village here to present £1,000 raised as part of our efforts.

We also now organise an annual motorcycle ride for SOS each Christmas. In 2002, we had around 30 bikes join us for the "Santa Ride". All the riders dress as Father Christmas and we tour the centre of Cambridge on the bikes, with collecting tins. It's great fun and we get plenty of drivers hooting their support, as we ride past, with kids waving from the window.