Mirror photo by William Kibler John Roseberry (from left) speaks with his son, Doug Roseberry, Phil Hess and John Harlow at the announcement of the national VA’s 2022 American Spirit & Excellence Award for a Volunteer Community Organization to the Freedom Ride fundraiser on Wednesday.

The Freedom Ride started as a way to recognize the works of those who served in uniform. Now, the Department of Veterans Affairs is returning the favor.

The annual Fourth of July bicycle Freedom Ride fundraiser from Tyrone to Tipton and back was recently chosen as the sole recipient of the national VA’s 2022 American Spirit & Excellence Award for a Volunteer Community Organization.

Over the years, the Freedom Ride has raised $250,000 for the Van Zandt VA Medical Center, money that has been used to refurbish a bus that takes wheelchair-bound vets to local events in comfort, to buy electronic hardware that helps veterans with job-seeking activities in the hospital library and to pay household expenses for vets threatened by homelessness.

“Every year we look for excellence in class,” said Tyrone Green, representing VA Center for Development and Civic Engagement, speaking via Zoom from Washington, D.C., to Phil Hess and Doug Roseberry, during the announcement of the award. “You are a beacon of light.”

The ride began with 33 people, and now typically comprises 500.

The organizers charge $20 for adult riders and $10 for children, and they seek sponsorships from businesses, both local and out-of-the area, and from families.

Last year there were at least 50 business and 50 family sponsorships.

There’s typically one business or organization that makes a donation that impresses — like the $5,000 that Franco Harris donated last year, based on his relationship with a longtime friend from the Tyrone area, Roseberry said.

They also did it not only to support veterans, but because it was fun, and because it could serve as a reunion time, given that many friends who’d left the area came home for the holiday anyway, Roseberry said.

The event lasts a few hours, and it’s over around noon or 1 p.m.

“There’s a good vibe,” Roseberry said.

Originally, the organizers offered to donate the money raised to a national veterans’ organization, but the organization declined the offer, Hess said.

The group turned to a local VA hospital, which has proven to be “a perfect partner,” Roseberry said.

For Roseberry, 9/11 made the role of the military seem “really real.”

He was in college during the attacks — at Pitt, playing football.

The attacks meant a national call for his generation to “step up” — the first time that had happened for people his age, who were just “blossoming into adulthood,” he said.

Hess was watching the TV coverage on 9/11 with his friend Pat Thornton, who had just graduated from the U.S. Marines boot camp.

Both realized immediately where Thornton would end up, and in keeping with that expectation, Thornton went to the Middle East — serving two tours of duty in Iraq.

“(Thornton’s) reaction was, ‘I’m going: this is what I signed up for,'” Hess said Wednesday at a ceremony at Van Zandt. “It was very eye-opening.”

That exposure to the gravity of Thornton’s commitment provided the kind of insight that 10 years later led Hess and fellow Northern Blair County friends and non-veterans Roseberry, Eric Sloss and Sean Riggle — along with Thornton — to begin a civilian initiative to honor and support those who have served.

The Freedom Ride was a way for the friends to step up, to “give back,” according to Roseberry and Hess.

“A generous community organization,” said hospital Director Derek Coughenour, “(is something) Freedom Ride embodies.”

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.