Washington Blade - November 1, 2002
Lou Chibbaro Jr.

One month after its official launching date, organizers of D.C.'s 2003 Tour de Friends AIDS bicycle ride say they are hopeful the event will draw thousands of riders and donors, reversing a record low return from the 2002 Washington, D.C. AIDS Ride.

"We view this as a new beginning," said Craig Shniderman, executive director of Food & Friends, the D.C. AIDS service group that is serving as the main sponsor of the 2003 ride.

Earlier this year, Food & Friends created a new non-profit group called Tour de Friends to organize and operate the ride, replacing Pallotta TeamWorks, the for-profit company based in Los Angeles that has produced the D.C. AIDS rides since 1996.

The Tour de Friends ride is scheduled to be held June 19-22, 2003, and will travel 330 miles. It will begin in Raleigh, N.C., and pass through Richmond, Va., before ending on the Mall in D.C. An AIDS service group in North Carolina and another in Richmond will join Food & Friends as beneficiaries of the new ride.

The Whitman-Walker Clinic, which had served as Food & Friends' co-beneficiary in the rides since 1996, decided it would no longer participate after the June 2002 event. Officials said the clinic would seek to replace the money it received from the rides through foundation and corporate donor programs.

The 2002 ride, the last one to be produced by Pallotta TeamWorks, pulled in $3.6 million in contributions from riders and other donors, but expenses associated with the event came to $3.1 million, leaving $500,000 in net proceeds. The $500,000 was split equally between Food & Friends and Whitman-Walker.

A finance statement released by Food & Friends in August showed that the 2002 ride yielded a return of 13.9 cents on every dollar raised, with 86.1 cents on the dollar going to overhead costs. The costs included a $225,000 production fee for Pallotta Teamworks.

Officials with Food & Friends and Whitman-Walker attributed the poor financial return to a drop in the number of riders. The 2002 event attracted 1,117 riders, a thousand fewer than the 2,118 riders participating in the 2001 D.C. AIDS ride.

Shniderman and Whitman-Walker Executive Director Cornelius Baker said the drop in riders was due, in part, to negative publicity surrounding Pallotta TeamWorks, including press reports of excessively high overhead costs for rides the Pallotta firm produced on behalf of AIDS vaccine research organizations.

The 2001 ride yielded more than $3.5 million in net proceeds, with a return of 50.5 cents on the dollar and 49.5 cents going to expenses and fees.

Shniderman predicted the 2003 ride, to be called Tour de Friends, would attract more riders and a "far greater" net return than this year's event.

Shniderman said organizers of the 2003 ride would consider a 50 cents-on-the-dollar return a success, based on the fact that "we're starting from scratch. " He said startup costs for the first year would likely be higher than for subsequent years.

"But I can tell you this. We're working real hard for a return significantly greater than that, " he said.

Mickie Ballotta, who has worked as the Food & Friends development director for nine years and who served as managing director of D.C.'s Avon Breast Cancer Walk in the late 1990s, has been named as head of Tour de Friends.

In a ceremony on Sept. 24, Food & Friends and others associated with the 2003 ride officially opened the Tour de Friends office at 11 Dupont Circle, where planning and organizing for the ride will take place.

Appearing at the ceremony were officials from two other AIDS service groups that will join Food & Friends as beneficiaries and co-producers of Tour de Friends - the Raleigh-Durham based Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina and the Richmond based Fan Free Clinic.

The Raleigh-Durham and Richmond groups will be aggressively recruiting riders from their areas, a development that is expected to boost the overall number of riders signing up for the event, spokespersons for the groups said.

"With this launch, we are embracing friends, family and generous strangers to pitch in and help us across two states and our nation's capital," Ballotta said at the office ceremony. "As an independent and volunteer-driven nonprofit, we know that Tour de Friends can do more with less - and we will focus our entire mission on HIV and AIDS," she said.

FOR MORE INFO

Tour de Friends

11 Dupont Cir., Suite 601

Washington, DC 20009

202-742-RIDE (7433)

www.tourdefriends.com

In a press release and in literature posted on its new Web site, Tour de Friends stresses the fact that it is a non-profit organization and that much of its overhead expenses are being paid for by individuals and corporations through donations and in-kind services. Law firms, printers, and computer software firms, including the Microsoft Corp., have already made "generous" contributions, Ballotta said.

Ballotta said 191 riders and 30 "tour corps" volunteers have signed up for the ride in the past four weeks. An advertising campaign in the local media, including the gay press, was expected to continue to draw riders and volunteers, Ballotta said.

Shniderman said that, under an agreement reached with the Raleigh-Durham and Richmond groups, Food & Friends has contributed $500,000 toward the ride's start-up costs. The Alliance of AIDS Services û Carolina has contributed $200,000 and the Fan Free Clinic in Richmond contributed $100,000.

Based on this, Food & Friends will receive 66.25 percent of the net proceeds, the Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina will receive 22.5 percent, and the Fan Free Clinic will receive 11.25 percent, according to Shniderman.

Lou Chibbaro can be reached at lchibbaro@washblade.com.

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