Holcomb Bridge Hustle 5k

Holcomb Bridge Hustle 5k Teams With Kyle Pease Foundation!!!!

Holcomb Bridge Middle School and the second-annual Holcomb Bridge Hustle 5k are
excited to announce a partnership with the Kyle Pease Foundation (KPF), a non-profit
organization which provides sports-participation opportunities for persons with disabilities.

To kick off this partnership, HBMS will be hosting an in-school assembly on Oct. 19 with
Kyle Pease, his brothers and KPF supporters to promote this year’s race, discuss the
organization’s goals and educate all HBMS students about inclusion of all athletes as part of the
group’s mission.
Through this partnership, the school, it’s PTA and race organizers, will be promoting
KPF’s mission to provide assistance for persons with disabilities and to help them meet their
individual needs through sports. Kyle Pease, as well as students who are being assisted by
KPF, and numerous KPF supporters and volunteers will participate in this year’s race.
We are excited to be able to help all students experience the thrill of reaching the
starting line and the exhilaration of crossing the finish line.





Mission Statement: The purpose of The Kyle Pease Foundation is to create awareness and raise funds
to promote success for persons with disabilities by providing assistance to meet their individual needs
through sports. Programs may include scholarship opportunities, purchasing medical equipment for
others or contribute to other organizations that provide similar assistance to disabled persons and
participating in educational campaigns to create awareness about Cerebral Palsy and other disabilities.

KPF will provide these services directly to individuals as well as partner with other existing non-profit organizations to achieve these goals. Direct beneficiaries will be limited to persons with disabilities who need adaptive sports equipment, mobility devices or medical care.

Bowling and Shopping With KPeasey!!!

Guess what?!?  It's that time of year again.  Yes we are already ready to go for our 3rd annual bowling event.  So please go ahead and SAVE THE DATE:

 

When: Nov 15th 6 pm - 9 pm

Where: Midtown Bowl 1936 Piedmont Circle Northeast  Atlanta, GA 30324

What: An Evening to benefit The Kyle Pease Foundation

Donation: $35 Suggested Donation to benefit The Kyle Pease Foundation 

                 Your donation will include a shirt, bowling and pizza!

 

 We hope that you can make it again this year so please be sure to mark the calendars NOW!!

See how much fun everyone is having!!!

We will also have our raffle again with more GREAT prizes

Unfortunately Karl Malone's shoes will not be available this year

And of course special guests....

The Dude

Not this dude...well maybe

We look forward to seeing everyone again soon and sharing with you our journey and plans beyond. 

Perhaps equally as exciting we now have another way to help The Kyle Pease Foundation. 

The Kyle Pease Foundation has teamed up with Socialvest, a cause-based shopping platform, to give you an opportunity to earn money for our organization every-time you shop online. Anytime you shop at one of 100's of participating retailers including Amazon, Target, Gap, Best Buy, and Nordstrom a percentage of your total purchase will be donated to the organization, at no cost to you! We know you want to support us but that time and money are two of the two biggest challenges we all face. Our goal is to find easy ways for you to give back just by doing something you already do: shop.

Visit SocialVest or use the link: https://www.socialvest.us/get-involved/register/kylepeasefoundation.

Please consider joining us in November and the next time you shop please remember there are easy ways to help too!  Thank you to you all who help us make this possible and we look forward to sharing with you soon.


All the best
KPeasey
Founder: The Kyle Pease Foundation

When can we race again??

Greg and Marin Smith have been racing with The Kyle Pease Foundation this year and most recently they competed in a duathlon at John Tanner Park near Carrolton, GA. First off we cannot say enough about Chuck and Kristen for and all of Tri The Parks race series for allowing us the opportunity to compete.  Rest assured you will be seeing us at plenty more of those races next year.  Truly a well run series. Greg recently helped pen a blog posst to share the experiences of his family at their first duathlon (Thanks Christy, Lauren and Graham for sharing the day!!!)

-Brent
KPF BOD Member, Walking with KPeasey racer

Marin and I had a tremendous time in the John Tanner tri-the-parks duathalon  this past weekend racing as representatives of The Kyle Pease Foundation.   For the past couple of weeks she and I did several training rides and runs together and I had the opportunity to talk To her often about racing again on Kyle's team. Marin was quite excited once again to Go Fast!  Several times during our training rides leading up to the race she would be on the bike with me encouraging me "go faster daddy", usually while I was going quite slowly up a hill!  On race day I woke Marin up at 5:50am, earlier than she has ever willingly gotten up.  She perked right up and told me she was ready to race.   After arriving at the park, she was very excited to set up - having her grandparents there to shower her with attention.  She was very excited to see Brent and especially Kyle arrive to cheer her on.

Kyle and Marin were all smiles!!

A duathlon consists of a run, then bike and then run.  After we started out on the first run, all the other runners turned to encourage Marin and she was thoroughly enjoying herself.  She sang songs to help me along...."mr. Sun, sun, Mr. Golden Sun, Please shine down on me". (we started off running with the sun in our eyes after the first quarter mile).  After the first transition saddling up into our bikes, we were off and fast.  Seems the trip to All3 Sports to tune up the ride was well worth the trip! 
We ended up passing quite a number of riders (blowing by some at 30+ mph) and all I could hear behind me was "WEEE.....WEEE!" like the little pig in that geico commercial. Marin was having a blast!   About 35 minutes into the ride, Marin decided to take a little nap since dad was cranking the peddles pretty well on his own (and as I said, she did wake up pretty early).  Finishing up the ride at 16mph pace for the entire ride was great and off we were for the final run.

Heading out for the final lap!

We managed to finish strong together encouraging one another and getting encouragement and energy from all the other racers around us.   Really cannot say enough about the people that put this race on and all of those out there as a volunteer or fellow competitor.  When we finished, Marin was tickled to get her Gold medal!

That evening, thoroughly tired after a great day, Marin unprompted said to me when I was putting her to bed that she was looking forward to our next race, this next time with Kyle!  I of course could not be happier.  Marin knows of course she is a little bit different from typical kids due to her walker and legs. However I am a true believer that modeling at an early age that she can participate in and achieve everything that typical kids/athletes/adults can is so important.  Plus it's incredibly fun for us all and a great way for dad and his little girl to bond together with Mom, sister Lauren, brother graham, family and friends cheering along the way.  The Thrill of Victory!

All of the winners!

We are looking forward to many more occasion and even more so when we can share the road with Kyle and the rest of They Kyle Pease Foundation!

-Greg Smith

Seattle and More

My good buddy Ben, who also chairs the board for the Kyle Pease Foundation, asked me to go to Seattle and watch his team participate in an ultimate frisbee tournament.  This was also a good opportunity for me to see one of my aides, Carla, who I have not seen in nine months since she has been on rotation for her PT school there.  I was also able to reconnect with my friends, Noa and Julie, who I had not seen in over 11 years.  

I met Noa and Julie at a United Cerebral Palsy camp in Connecticut when I was 14.  This camp was one of the first times I was away from home, and Noa took me under his wing.  We developed an awesome friendship.  I went to their wedding and visited them a couple times in Boston when Noa was in med school.  

Back to Seattle...I was in my manuel wheelchair, so Noa had to transfer me quite a bit.  There was a lot of laughs and a lot of screeching the first couple times.  But by the end he was a pro's pro.  We saw some major attractions of Seattle such as the Space Needle, a tour of Safeco Field, and, of course, Gas Works, a beautiful public park.  It was so good to see everybody.  It was just like old times.  

This past weekend was also exciting for my Foundation as our Board of Directors got together for a weekend retreat.  We’ve made a lot of strides since our inception a year and a half ago and it’s been on display a lot over the past few months;  we’ve had a number of kids participating in various races locally under KPF and just last month sent Christina Young to the National Junior Disabilities Championships.  With our weekend retreat, we spent time getting to know each other better and worked with a third party facilitator to help us focus our efforts and make sure we’re operating in the most efficient way possible.  We’re already seeing some great results and are excited about the growth of the Foundation.  More to come soon!!

We are about to enter the fall portion of our season, which started this past Saturday with a nice little 4 miler.  I was actually second place male in the 25-29 category and 5th place overall!!! No wheelchair division needed!  After that, we will take some more time off while Brent does his Louisville Ironman.  Please wish him well as he has trained for this for almost a year.  I know he will do great.  I will be tweeting live from Louisville, so make sure you are following Walking With KPeasey on Twitter.  Thanks again for all of your support.  

-KPeasey

National Junior Disability Championships

Hello everyone! My name is Christina Young and I am one of the athletes that is a part of The Kyle Pease Foundation

Thank you, Kyle Pease Foundation, for being my first ever sponsor for such a great event! On Wednesday July 25th, I got the opportunity to travel to Mesa, Arizona for my last Track Junior Nationals (NJDC) thanks to The Kyle Pease Foundation. I traveled there with my team, the Georgia Blazers, a team with 5 other athletes and two coaches. My team and I went to compete in the 100, 200, 400, and 800 meter races as well as field events consisting of discus, javelin, and shot put.  We also had 6 swimmers there before us who competed and got firsts in 30 events out of 34. So already our team was doing great. 

The squad

 It was Arizona, so it was always hot, but so was the competition! I was kind of nervous at first, but I found out that I was still fast. I've been to about four NJDCs in my life and every year I would come in the top three. So this year I was nervous because the other girls in my events had faster times than me this year. 

The first events I did was field. I had to miss shot put because my coach misunderstood something. So I ended up only doing discus and javelin. Well after some issues with equipment, I got all firsts, but no personal records. But I was totally fine with it since field isn't my forte. What I was ready for, was track. 

Before the Javelin and rocking some KPeasey Blue of course!

The next day was the first day of track events. It was so hot in AZ that track was during the evening/night, so all day we hung out at the hotel and relaxed by the pool before the first and only event that day, my favorite event, the 100 meter dash.  When I got there I started getting nervous, but no one could tell. All the the other girls in that event thought they'd beat me with the times they had this year.  Well they sure were in for a shock, and so was I. I ended up getting first place and beating all the girls with a time of 19.54.  I was so shocked my self. I had no idea where it came from. 

Not slowing down for any camera's :)

The next day was the 200 and 800, the events that I did for my high school team in the spring. I ended up winning both of those out of all the girls in all the wheelchair heats. With times of 2:29 for the 800 and :35 seconds for the 200. Again, I was so shocked! It was so unbelievable. Then the next day we did our last track event, the 400, a one lap sprint. I ended up winning that as well and beating every one with the time of 1:10 seconds. 

All in all, I won every event as well as had all season bests. It was great. That week also helped me make a very important decision in my life that will effect my future. I chose to do track and racing in college. I already will be playing wheelchair basketball at the University of Illinois on an athletic scholarship. So now I decided to do both sports and train as much as I can to hopefully make it to the Rio 2012 Paralympics. 

Was so surprised and happy to receive this!

The last night, we had a banquet where awards were given out. The Georgia Blazers won the third place for the large teams. This was one of our biggest awards. 

I really want to thank The Kyle Pease Foundation for sponsoring me on this trip. It was truly a life changing week that wouldn't have happened without the sponsorship. I also want to thank BlazeSports for all they have done for me in the past years. I am truly blessed. I really can't wait to see what other amazing things happen with Walking with KPeasy and the Foundation.