Team Mang's other more important activities

One of the fishing boats sponsored by the team

This team is not just about cycling and training for big cycling events.  At its core, it's always been just a group of friends who love doing things together and have fun doing it.  Somebody once quipped , "if you take this group of people and you take cycling away, what would be left - would you still be friends?"  Mangs and Alings at heart believe so. We support each other in our efforts towards making this place we call earth a better place to live in.  One of the ways the team has been able to do that recently is by helping families in the typhoon ravaged areas of the Philippines.

Mang Raf joined Amor and Jojie in
the Philippines to distribute goods
and award the fishing boats

A couple of team members, Mang Amor and Mang Jojie, were involved with a non-profit that was bringing supplies and rebuilding boats for fishermen in Bantayan Island (some of you may be familiar with the place as a tourist area, but the folks who actually live there are dependent on fishing as their sole livelihood - a livelihood which was taken away when typhoon Yolanda flattened everything including their fishing boats). 

Jun, posing with Amor and Jojie
beside the LAFBL-sponsored
fishing boat

After some team members made individual donations, they brought up the opportunity to the team and the members voted overwhelmingly to work with other cycling groups and non-profits to forego the benefits of sponsor funds (reduced prices on jerseys) and funnel that benefit towards the awarding of fishing boats and goods to survivors of the typhoon.  The team worked with the following groups: Life After Forty Bicycling League (LAFBL), Filipino American Physicians  Associatio of Washington (FAPWA), Northwest Mission of Hope and a few individuals from St. Stephens church, Expedia and Seattle City Light to bring the much needed assistance to these families through the non-profit organization Back To Sea.

Back to Sea is the non-profit we worked with

We may have only been able to fund 2 boats for two families but we hope that in some small way, this ragtag group of guys and gals who happened to be cycling together is able to meet some need around the world simply because we hang out together.  We are always thankful that we enjoy the benefits of an active lifestyle here in the USA but we do take every opportunity to try to meet the bigger needs of others.   

Way to go, team!