Wounded Warriors Ability Ranch<\/a>,\u00a0said the event is centered on helping veterans leave the house, stay active and connect with others.<\/p>\n\u201cWe want to get injured veterans out and active. That\u2019s our tagline,\u201d Delancey said.<\/p>\n
Riders came out for different reasons. Some said they wanted to support organizations in their local community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love being part of the local community, and I love doing active things,\u201d biker Dre-an Roberts said.<\/p>\n
Others, including veterans, said they wanted to support fellow service members who were injured.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a vet myself, disabled vet,\u201d biker Larry Smith said. \u201cWhen I got a call from the VA asking for riders, I decided to come over and ride for the vets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Delancey said this year\u2019s ride carries extra meaning because it marks his Alive Day and comes during the 25th anniversary of 9\/11. He said the attacks were one of the reasons he decided to serve.<\/p>\n
Delancey said he still remembers being a sophomore in high school on Sept. 11, 2001.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of weird because they never hold you from class in between periods,\u201d Delancey said. \u201cAnd when I got there, everything was on TV, and I didn\u2019t understand what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since then, Delancey has become a leader in the veteran community through the Wounded Warriors Ability Ranch. He said creating opportunities for injured veterans to be active can have a meaningful impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen a veteran gets out and has something to strive for, something to start working out, feeling better about themselves, coming around a community of people with similar injuries, it does wonders for who they are as a person,\u201d Delancey said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PINELLAS PARK, Fla. \u2014 Dozens of bike riders took part in the annual Wounded Warriors Alive Day ride…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[767,1011,1013,274,770,1190,2200,4628,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,2032,835],"class_list":["post-388191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-community","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-latest-human-interest-stories","tag-app-top-stories","tag-community-news","tag-human-interest","tag-instagram-bn9","tag-matt-lackritz","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}