Red Knights riding for animal charity Rescue, Revive, Rehome

Members of the Red Knights Chapter 3.

For the Red Knights this weekend, it’s all about the animals.

Red Knights is a club for members of the fire service and their families who enjoy riding motorcycles.

Chapter 3 covers the Bay of Plenty and Waikato and the chapter has organised its first charity ride on Saturday to benefit animal charity Rescue, Revive, Rehome (RRR).

Chapter president Randy Offenbaker says he hopes it will become an annual event, benefiting different charities.

“It’s a bit difficult to judge numbers on who’s going to take part in the event, but ideally we’d like to see 30 to 50 riders. As it becomes something we do every year, the numbers will increase.”

The ride is open to the public and starts at the Pāpāmoa Fire Station, with registrations from 9am.

Lunch will be at Te Aroha’s fire station and after about 240km, the ride will finish at Te Puke’s fire station.

Pre-registration is requested for numbers at the various stations, where food will be sold to raise money for each brigade.

“When we organise an event, we try and incorporate a couple of brigades to go to and visit, which means they get some support, put on a meal, giving them an opportunity to raise some funds for their station.

“Pāpāmoa Volunteer Fire Brigade will be doing a breakfast while we are doing registration checks and handing out the ride patches to those that registered.”

He says people can just turn up on Saturday morning without pre-registering.

“They just want to bear in mind, they might want to have breakfast before they turn up.”

RRR was the favoured charity of three put forward.

“One of the reasons is animals are just as important to families as the actual emergency services and we find that a lot of animals are being abandoned on the roadside.

“Rescue, Revive, Rehome are doing a fantastic job of trying to rehome these dogs and animals, but they don’t get a lot of support so they really rely on the community.”

Randy’s partner Tracey is a supporter of RRR.

“She asked if the club would like to do a ride to raise some money for them, we took it to the club and the club said ‘yup, that’s a good idea’.”

Randy is station officer at the Pāpāmoa Volunteer Fire Brigade and has been involved in the chapter, which has about 40 members, since 2020.

“We are quite a large chapter and we try and get out at least once a month on a ride.”

To register for the charity ride, email presidentnz3@outlook.co.nz.