More than 150 motorcyclists plan on riding through St. Thomas, Ont., and the surrounding area Saturday in honour of Aiden Curtis, the 11-year-old boy who was killed in a crash last week.
A Ride for Aiden is planned to start at 10 a.m. Saturday, at the plaza at Highbury Avenue and Ron McNeil Line, with riders leaving at 11:15 a.m.
The ride is being put together by London Motorcycle Rides (LMR), a motorcycle enthusiast group.
Brent Hunter, one of the organizers for the ride and one of the heads of LMR, says the ride has a personal connection with the group.
“A number of our members are (from St. Thomas). It’s a community coming together to help, which is great to see,” he said.
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“This (ride) was important to us; one of our members is the uncle to Aiden, so he came to the group and asked for us to step in and help.”
Hunter said cash donations for the family will be collected that morning. Additionally, LMR encouraged people to donate to the GoFundMe set up to support the family if they are interested.
The group will ride with a police escort through St. Thomas, passing the memorial site to Curtis before stopping at the Curtis family’s home to give them the donations collected.
Once through the city, the route is planned to head to Port Burwell for a rest break. After the break, they’ll continue through Aylmer back to the starting location.
Hunter says that while the group does rides every week, this one is the biggest they’ve ever done.
“There were a couple of people working on it. I think it got overwhelming for them so they asked us to step in and help. We’ve just been calling on a lot of our members to step in and help us with planning the ride and getting things put together.”
Curtis was killed July 4 when a pickup truck left the road and struck five pedestrians. Curtis was pronounced dead at the scene.
One of the victims, a woman identified as Carol Wilson, remains in hospital with life-threatening injuries. The other three pedestrians were treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
A 19-year-old man was charged with impaired driving causing death and impaired driving causing bodily harm following the crash.
The GoFundMe campaign for the family has raised just over $35,000 at the time of writing, surpassing its $10,000 goal.
For more information on the ride, visit the group’s Facebook page.
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