Tragedy Creates New Event to Benefit Non-Profit

The family of 16-year-old amateur motocross racer, Ricky James, has decided to hold a fundraising golf tournament with the Next Steps Foundation in an effort to raise awareness and funds for research to cure spinal cord injuries.

Murrieta, CA (PRWEB) August 7, 2005 -- Due to the recent injury of Ricky James, an upcoming amateur motocross racer that left the 16 year old paralyzed on March 10th, 2005, the James family has decided to hold a fundraising golf tournament with the non-profit Next Steps Foundation, California chapter (www.next-steps.org) to raise awareness and funds for the research to cure spinal cord injury.

I was happy to hear from Rick (father of Ricky), despite the tragedy, I wanted to let him know, as a motor sports competitor and racer, that there was hope," says Next Steps Founder and Kennedy Krieger Institute's International Center for Spinal Cord Injury Director of Development Pat Rummerfield. I raced cars and Ricky raced motorcycles, so we had something in common," says Rummerfield. I was elated when I heard that Ricky and his family wanted to do something that will benefit spinal cord injury research."

The tournament is scheduled for Oct. 5, 2005, and will be held at the Trilogy Golf Club at Glen Ivy in Corona, Ca. and is open to anyone who wants to participate or contribute to the Next Steps Foundation. The tournament has many different sponsorship levels and is expected to raise over $75,000.00 for the non-profit.

All net proceeds from the event will go to the Reeve-Irvine Research Center (www.reeve.uci.edu) at the University of California, Irvine through the Next Steps Foundation, California chapter. The research center is working on new and promising technologies to cure paralysis caused by spinal cord injury.

Sponsorship levels for the tournament range from $200 to Titanium Corporate sponsorship level of $5,000.

We wanted to have a way for almost anyone to participate." says James.

For more information call Rick James at (909) 376-3302 or visit the Ricky James website at www.rickyjames824.com

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