Ride 4 Rotary
A heartfelt thank you to all of you who were involved in this year's Ride4Rotary event in one way or another!! And a bit thanks to Elite Energy Events for an incredible Ride4Rotary 2025.
We beat the rain and everyone who participated in our rides had an awesome time and soaked up the family friendly atmosphere of the Lang Park Exhibit!
With registrations throughout the weekend and on the day we reached a record 198 riders.
We loved seeing families riding side by side, and were especially proud to cheer on our amazing all-abilities riders. Ride Wollongong is all about celebrating life on wheels — and on Sunday, we saw the very best of that.
Your overwhelming generosity has seen us raise over $50,000 for Southern Youth and Family Services.
A big congratulations to Tim Egan who was the event's highest fundraiser and was the winner of a Marlin 4 Mountain Bike kindly donated by Trek Warrawong.
Ride4Rotary Illawarra was the brainchild of 2 Illawarra Rotarians in late 2013.
The concept of a cycling event to raise finds for vulnerable and disadvantaged youth was born with the first R4R Illawarra taking place on 2014 raising $4,000 and featuring 25 riders.
Operating as the Combined Rotary Clubs of the Illawarra and featuring 6 of the 9 local Rotary Clubs, the organisers created a committee and selected local charity, Southern Youth and Family Services (SYFS) as a benificiary of funds raised.
5 years later, after 6 consecutive annual events, a total of $93,000 has been raised for SYFS and in 2019 an agreement was formalised linking Rotary Illawarra and SYFS in partnership to this event exclusively.
Last year's event raised over $51,000 for Youth at Risk
Southern Youth & Family Services
Southern Youth and Family Services (SYFS) is a local Not-for-Profit that has the main purpose of supporting and caring for vulnerable and homeless young people (up to twenty four years of age) or those at risk of disadvantage and homelessness. SYFS also supports the families of these young people which may include parents, grand parents, siblings, other extended family members and even foster families.
What we do?
This work provides Supported Accommodation, Community Social Housing, Health and Outreach Services, Out of Home Care Services, Family Services including counselling, parenting programs and early intervention, and Education, Employment and Training programs.
Last year, across 47 different services SYFS provided Supported Accommodation, Community Social Housing, Health and Outreach Services, Out of Home Care Services and Family Services including Counselling, Parenting Programs, Early Intervention, and Education, Employment and Training programs.
SYFS operated 47 different services through 20 different funding programs in 2020-21, assisting 22,539 families and young people.
