When the Achilles Freedom Team of Wounded Veterans needs a truck to haul their hand cycling gear, they call on a 2014 Chevrolet Silverado High Country truck. It helps the veterans get to marathons in style while they rebuild their lives.
The handcycling team just finished four marathons in handcycles since early October. With a much needed break coming, the team is recuperating with family and friends this Veterans Day.
While the team rests, the truck continues working. Once a month it transports handcycles from New York to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. These trips bring the wounded veterans and their gear to marathons and races.
Chevrolet donated the truck to the team at last year’s Army-Navy game.
“Our veterans deserve the very best we can give them,” said Sandor Piszar, Chevrolet’s truck marketing director.
Besides the Walter Reed trips to recruit new members and meet with physical therapists, the team hauls their three-wheel hand cycles to different venues.
“We’ve put a little over 20,000 miles on it so far and it drives and hauls like a dream,” said Joe Traum, director of handcycle and kayak programs for Achilles International. Traum’s father, Dick, founded the organization and in 1976 was the first athlete to finish a marathon with a prosthetic leg.
In the past five years, General Motors has donated more than $1M to the Achilles Freedom Team helping more than 1,000 veterans. Along with the truck, the donations cover the cost of registration fees, gear, cycles, jerseys, transportation, meals and other expenses.
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