The 4th annual Ride for Relief has been an incredible success, raising over $145,000 with more donations still coming in. Ride for Relief is a charity cycling event hosted by Peninsula Hot Springs to support mental health awareness. All the fund raised via the event goes to an event beneficiary, Mentis Assist. 

Thank you to all who have donated! A group of 20 dedicated cyclists and 13 support crew embarked on the six-day 800+ km ride from Mallacoota in East Gippsland to the Mornington Peninsula on 22nd March. The 20 cyclists were joined by a further 29 one day riders on Sunday the 27th of March when the riders in 4 pelotons tackled the challenging ride through the spectacular and diverse landscape of the Peninsula before crossing the finish line at Peninsula Hot Springs. 

We are so grateful for everyone who has donated to Mentis Assist through the Ride for Relief event. As a not-for-profit mental health organisation, these funds will help support our clients living with a diagnosed mental illness. They will enable us to employ experienced staff who will deliver needed services, purchase additional equipment and facilitate programs for clients to help them manage their mental health needs. You can still donate to Ride for Relief in the links below! 

“Mentis Assist is pleased to partner with Peninsula Hot Springs in this unique event. Events like Ride for Relief not only raise much-needed funds but also provides an opportunity to raise awareness of the prevalence of mental health issues in our community and the services that are available to those in need”,
 
– Terry Parioportas, Mentis Assist.
 
“We thank Peninsula Hot Springs for their ongoing support, everyone who helped organise the event, and of course all of the participants.”

100% of the funds raised provided to Mentis Assist will go directly to helping clients reconnect with the community and live their best life. We wanted to showcase how these funds directly support our clients and how Ride for Relief funds have helped:

A young single mother who had been through domestic violence with drug use lost custody of her son, which caused the son to be placed in foster care.  Wanting to get her son back, she worked extremely hard with services to turn her life back around.  

The client has been completely drug-free for approximately 6 months, has regained custody of her son, and discharged from their service.  

The client wanted to better her life with a good ongoing career and had begun an online course that she was desperately trying to complete using only her phone (with a broken screen).  

The client struggled but refused to ask for help. Ride for Relief funds was used to purchase a laptop to allow her to complete her course online. Due to this funding, she has now completed a large portion of the course with excellent marks.  

This small token of help from Mentis Assist and Ride for Relief has assisted a young single mother desperately working to better herself, to completely change the direction of both her and her son’s life for the foreseeable future. 

We wanted to say a special thank you to all our wonderful sponsors Platinum Sponsor, NAB, Giant Bicycle and HP&CP Australia as the Gold partners, Seachange Property, Solution One + Lenovo, and Dolphin Fencing as the Silver partners, and Mitsubishi Motors Australia, Mornington Mitsubishi, Searoad Ferries, Ashfords, Woolworths, iBuild Group, Eziway, Key Choice Group, Blue Peter Motors, Plaster Pro Interiors, Marco Luccio, Avis Frankston, and Swell Building Group as Bronze partners. Peninsula Hot Springs for hosting such a successful event, Bade Stapleton from Connect Sport Australia for coordinating a professional and well-run event, the Ride for Relief organising committee and all the volunteers that assisted with the 6-day tour and the 1 –day ride. Without all your generous support and sponsorship, this event would not have been able to raise the awareness and donations it has to help those living with a diagnosed mental illness.

You can still donate click the link below:
https://rideforrelief.grassrootz.com

You can also donate to our PayPal Giving Account at:  https://www.paypal.com/au/fundraiser/charity/3504130