This year Christmas came a few days early to the pediatric oncology unit at the Infermi hospital in Rimini. On Friday, December 21, the cycling club Fausto Coppi, the Sportful company and l’Istituto Oncologico Romagnolo made the most of the pet therapy initiative sponsored by Dog Galaxy Centro Cinofilo, which brought puppies to the hospital to surprise the staff and children being treated in the unit headed by Dr Roberta Pericoli. During the event, a check for 20,000 euro was delivered directly to the department chief from the #NoveColli4Children initiative, a race against the clock that took place during the oldest Granfondo event in the world, in which a group of champions gave it their all to make it to the finish line of the 130 km route in less than 4 hours.
Yuri Chechi, Ivan Basso, Joaquim Rodriguez and company came very close to accomplishing the daunting feat; however, the generosity of the Fausto Coppi Cycle-tourism Group and Sportful Company helped guarantee the donation to the Romagnolo Oncology Group, which will use the money to ensure two essential services for the young patients at the hospital in Rimini: pet therapy and scholarships for all those kids whose illness forces them to miss out on school for long periods of time, thus hampering their education compared to their healthy classmates, putting them at a disadvantage just because they have cancer.
“We are proud of the #novecolli4children initiative that we instituted with the help of our friends from IOR, Istituto Oncologico Romagnolo, with whom we’ve been collaborating for years, and from Sportful, thanks to the generosity of the Cremonese family,” emphasizes the President of ASD Fausto Coppi di Cesenatico, Alessandro Spada. “This year I personally took part in the volunteers’ day in Bellaria, and I can’t shake the image of those kids who are suffering from this disease. It warms my heart to know that thanks to our initiative we are helping to ease their suffering. I want to applaud Dr Pericoli and everyone who works for the IOR. Thanks to pet therapy and homeschooling, we can reduce the anxiety and pain of these little patients and at the same time help them to not fall behind in school.
We are already working together with our friends at the IOR and their manager Fabrizio Miserocchi, who is a big cycling fan, on new, exciting projects for the future.”
“We immediately embraced this project, and we would like to thank all the members of our Dream Team for having believed in this initiative,” says Dario Cremonese, CEO for Valcismon Manufacturing, on behalf of Sportful. “We couldn’t have asked for more from our supporting champions. Considering their commitment, and especially the good cause they were contributing to, our only goal was to do our part. The pet therapy and scholarship programs for the young patients in the Rimini hospital give us hope: it’s a small contribution that can make a big difference in the lives of these patients.”
“The fantastic success of the #NoveColli4Children initiative resulted in an essential contribution for us,” explains the General Manager of IOR, Fabrizio Miserocchi. “Because it allows us to guarantee two activities that are extremely important in these kids’ treatments: Pet therapy helps reduce the anxiety and pain these young patients experience during an extremely stressful time in their lives and those of their families, making it easier for them to face their treatments. And thanks to the scholarship programs, teachers can go directly to the homes of these kids, so they can keep up with the educational progress of their fellow classmates. This way we can avoid the patient being left behind due to simple bad luck, or if we want to call it what it really is, a right proper injustice; so once the patient is better, his or her return to school will be less traumatic. This day has been a crowning achievement in a friendship that for years has bound us with an excellent Romagnia tradition, the Nove Colli, which has always supported the fight against cancer in our territory.”