It can be said that the Kroger Co., the national grocery retailer based in Cincinnati, Ohio was instrumental in the start up of the TUKANDU Cycling Club. Here is how it happened.
In 1981, after working with students for a year at the Ohio State School for the Blind, and receiving a Master's degree in Teaching the Visually Impaired, a Cincinnati resident decided that bike riding was a service our city needed to offer it visually impaired citizens. To get the wheels rolling, he wrote a grant to the Kroger company, which generously responded with a grant to purchase four Schwinn tandem bicycles. In the following years these bicycles were used by blind and visually impaired children and adults in the Cincinnati area for recreational rides and various cycling events.
In 1999, through the work of Terry Davis and Jim Cable, these Kroger donated tandems were transferred to what has become the highly successful organization, TUKANDU. Since that time, through the scheming and ingenuity of TUKANDU, it has expanded its fleet of tandems to twelve through purchase of two new ones and donation of others. It is sometimes a challenging task to keep these tandems operational, but TUKANDU members are resourceful in keeping most of the units operational. However, TUKANDU is constantly striving to replace its fleet of tandems with new and better functioning units.
One factor stands out in that TUKANDU owes its beginnings to that original Kroger donation of those four Schwinn tandem bicycles. In recent years, Kroger has also lent support when TUKANDU was a major participant in two tandem cycling fundraisers, one in 2009 and one in 2010. Kroger supplied food, snacks, and beverages for participants in the tandem cycling rallies.
Thank you Kroger Co.
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