Motorcycle Run Will Benefit Canine Rescue Organization

at 402 N. Weber Road in Romeoville is the sponsor and the starting and ending point for the Ride to Their Rescue Motorcycle Run this Sunday, June 24.

The event will benefit Safely Home Canine Rescue, a foster-based, volunteer-driven group dedicated to placing stray and homeless dogs in loving, permanent homes. The rescue organization is based out of Plainfield Township.

Motorcycle riders and their passengers can register for the approximately 110-mile ride beginning at 9:30 a.m. at Stella’s. Registration forms can be downloaded by clicking here and will also be available at Stella’s the morning of the ride, which begins at 10:30 a.m.

Participants must pledge a minimum of $10 for each rider and passenger, but pledges over that amount are more than welcome. Dog lovers who are unable to participate in the motorcycle ride may also make a donation or sponsor a rider. Safely Home Canine Rescue is a 501(C3) charitable organization.

Sunday’s ride will be the first of its kind for Joe Ciarlette of Joliet, president of Safely Home Canine Rescue. Although he had owned and ridden motorcycles in the past, Ciarlette said he had experienced a “10 or 11-year dry spell” in which he went bikeless.

But, Ciarlette said, he wasn’t about to miss Sunday’s Ride to Their Rescue.

“I went out and bought a cruiser and fixed it up so I could ride, too,” Ciarlette said.

Bikers and their passengers will begin the charity-driven ride at Stella’s at 10:30 a.m. and make their first pit stop at the Iron Horse Saloon at 1225 E. Ninth Street in Lockport.  

From there, the route will take riders to Bit O’ Blarney’s Pub, 525 S. State St., Manhattan; On the Rox, 670 W. Station St., Kankakee; Freakster’s Roadhouse, 113 E. Baltimore St. (Route 66), Wilmington; Liquid Therapy, 3501 Channahon Road, Channahon; then back to Stella’s in Romeville.

Stella’s owner, Geri Gallagher, will serve a buffet dinner to participants at 5 p.m., and door prizes, raffles and a 50/50 split-the-pot will add to the festivities.

Ciarlette explained the event will be similar to a poker run.  Each participant will pick up a colored ball signifying a designated point value and collect points at each stop along the way. At the end of the run, the rider or passenger with the highest point value will win a prize.

But the prize for the day will really be the funds raised to help Ciarlette, his wife, Angie, and about 20 volunteers who rescue, shelter, care for and adopt out homeless dogs through Safely Home Canine Rescue.

The Ciarlette’s organization rescues homeless or stray dogs from shelters in southern Illinois, then immediately bathes the animals and transports them to a veterinarian for tests, treatment and to get them up to date on shots.

But the ultimate goal of the organization is to place each dog in a loving, responsible home.

Ciarlette said each rescued dog stays with one of the organization’s approved and thoroughly vetted foster homes before being placed -- and he is adamant that no animal goes to a permanent home without first being spayed or neutered.

“And we will not adopt to an existing home with a pet that’s not spayed or neutered, either," Ciarlette added.

Once a dog is ready to be adopted out to a responsible, loving home, it’s time for the foster family to say goodbye to their temporary guest, a process that is “never done without a box of Kleenex,” Ciarlette said.

In keeping with their organization’s motto, “A loving home for every dog, an educated person in every home,” Joe and Angie Ciarlette currently share their home with four dogs: a Great Pyrenees, a pit bull, a cocker spaniel and a rat-terrier mix. The couple is also fostering an American Staffordshire terrier and a yellow Lab/Visla mix.

To view dogs currently up for adoption or for more information on the organization or Sunday’s motorcycle-ride fundraiser, visit Safely Home Canine Rescue at http://www.safelyhomecaninerescue.org.