{"id":741365,"date":"2026-07-03T18:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T18:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/741365\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T18:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T18:36:09","slug":"pitching-in-cycling-to-support-mental-health-programs-and-to-heal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/741365\/","title":{"rendered":"Pitching in: Cycling to support mental health programs \u2013 and to heal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Barb Brophey participates in a virtual cycling fundraiser for Jack.org near Kimberly, Ont., in 2020, in memory of fellow gymnastics instructor Bridget Wang.Jason Desveaux\/handout\/Supplied<\/p>\n

The organizer: Barb Brophey<\/p>\n

The pitch: Raising $345,000 and climbing<\/p>\n

The cause: To support mental health programs for young people<\/p>\n

Bridget Wang loved sports and she spent more than a decade in gymnastics, as an athlete and a coach. Even while studying dentistry at the University of Toronto, Ms. Wang took time out to oversee a summer sports camp and help out in the gym.<\/p>\n

What no one in the program knew was that Ms. Wang was dealing with mental health issues. She died from suicide on Dec. 5, 2017, at the age of 21.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw her in the gym two weeks before she passed,\u201d said Barb Brophey, a gymnastics instructor at the University of Toronto Gymnastics Club, a community program where Ms. Wang trained and coached. \u201cI didn\u2019t know Bridget was struggling. I wish I had, but I don\u2019t know if I would have had the tools to have helped her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Brophey and the athletes were devastated. \u201cIt was such a loss I\u2019d never experienced,\u201d she recalled. \u201cSo we thought we\u2019d get together and do something.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group learned about a Toronto-based charity called Jack.org<\/a>, which offers a range of mental health support programs for young people. The charity holds an annual cycling event in May to raise money and Ms. Brophey began pulling together a team. \u201cWe all got out our bikes and we did something just to kind of build community and deal with the loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around 19 athletes took part in the first ride and since then the group has ranged as high as 52 cyclists. Over the last nine years, Team Bridget has raised $345,000 in total. \u201cBridget was beautiful inside and out from the moment she was born,\u201d her parents Laura Tam and Tao Wang wrote on the team\u2019s fundraising website. \u201cOur hope is that our combined energy can help to prevent even just one future tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Brophey said the ride has been healing for her and the athletes in the club. \u201cAfter you get a little bit of the crying out of the way, it\u2019s very joyful. It\u2019s very powerful, and the least we do is raise the money.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Barb Brophey participates in a virtual cycling fundraiser for Jack.org near Kimberly, Ont.,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260,24296],"class_list":["post-741365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-noastack"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}