Bikers embark on the fourth annual Ride for Refuge in Prince Albert at the Alfred Jenkins Fieldhouse on Oct. 4, 2025. (Logan Lehmann/paNOW)

By Logan Lehmann

For a great cause

Fourth annual Ride for Refuge the largest installment so far

Oct 4, 2025 | 4:05 PM

The annual Ride for Refuge was held on Saturday and Prince Albert didn’t just show up, they showed out.

The event is a nationwide, family-friendly cycling and walking fundraiser that partners with charities who take part in helping those seeking refuge from danger, abuse and hardship. Participants had the option to either walk 2.5km or 5km, ride their bikes in a 10km or 20km loop, or bike the entirety of the Rotary Trail, which is 22.6km around the city.

Catholic Family Services (CFS) was behind the event, where event organizer and CFS board member Jeannette Eddolls said they smashed their fundraising goal of $51,000 before the day of the Ride, a first for the event in Prince Albert.

“The first one (in 2022), our goal was around 30,000, and we didn’t quite make that. The next year we made it into the 40s, and [Malcolm Jenkins] said, ‘Shoot for the big one, we’re going to 51’,” she explained.

Ride for Refuge falls under what’s called a peer-to-peer fundraiser, where participants can become a Team Captain and register a team online, or join an existing team, to recruit friends and family and raise money together.

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In Prince Albert, there were 17 teams that raised a total of $52,292.99 by event day, and donations will still be collected until the deadline on Oct. 30. Eddolls said that Jenkins would match the totals of the top three teams, who together have raised $24,270.99.

“Last I looked, it was very close to $25,000, and I told that to him, I said, ‘I don’t know if we’re quite there’, and he said, ‘It’s close enough’. Last year, he ended up giving us $25,000 overall, the before I think was $15,000, and this year it’ll be $30,000.”

She added that the 2025 edition of Ride for Refuge saw a record number of community sponsors, and Prince Albert as a whole was ranked fourth in the national scoreboard on event day for money raised, trailing only Richmond, B.C. ($124,893.49), Vancouver, B.C. ($84,659.88), and Kitchener, Ont. ($80,066.32), who have between 25-40 teams each. Saskatoon was the only other Saskatchewan community in the top 10, ranking ninth with $37,518.10 raised across 17 teams.

“It’s astounding,” said Eddolls. “When I look at the screen, the top 20 teams are from the bigger centers. And here, a city of 40,000 people, we’re doing better than them, and they’ve got industry behind them and stuff like that, and we don’t have that.”

In 2023, Ride for Refuge raised $1,256,398 for charities across Canada, while last year’s event also raised over $1.2 million nationwide.

For more information about Ride for Refuge Prince Albert and Catholic Family Services, click here.

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loganc.lehmann@pattisonmedia.com

On Bluesky: @loganlehmann.bsky.social