Kingston-Quinte Ride for Dad raises $38K for prostate cancer research

On a Friday afternoon in late July, a group of leather-clad motorcyclists gathered at the Cataraqui Arena in Kingston with something to celebrate. They weren't there to show off their bikes or compare engine specs. They were there to hand over a cheque for $38,000 to Dr. Katrina Gee, an associate professor at Queen's University's School of Medicine, for her research into how the immune system can be trained to attack prostate cancer cells.

The Kingston-Quinte Ride for Dad is not your typical motorcycle club. Since 2004, these riders—many of them sporting orange vests and leather alongside their machines—have been funneling their passion for the road into something larger: a sustained campaign against a disease that touches thousands of men across Ontario every year. In nearly two decades, the group has raised more than $1.5 million for prostate cancer causes. Of that, more than $650,000 has gone directly to research projects aimed at understanding and fighting the disease.

The 2021 donation to Dr. Gee's work represents the latest chapter in this ongoing effort. Her research focuses on natural killer cell-mediated prostate cancer cell death—essentially, training the body's own immune defenses to recognize and destroy cancer cells. It's the kind of foundational work that requires sustained funding, the kind that motorcycle clubs don't typically bankroll. Yet here they were, presenting a five-figure cheque to advance science.

The pandemic could have derailed them. Instead, the Kingston-Quinte chapter adapted. They created what they called "Ride Alone Together," a format that let motorcyclists register and complete a set route either solo or in small groups, all while respecting COVID-19 protocols. The 2021 campaign ran through September, and even before it officially closed, the group was already making its mark on local research.

Two men stood at the front of the gathering on that July afternoon: Jack Harry and David John Bailey, both prostate cancer survivors. Their presence was not ceremonial. Prostate cancer is Ontario's most common cancer among men, with roughly 8,500 diagnoses expected in a single year. The disease had touched their lives directly. They spoke to the assembled researchers, volunteers, and hospital foundation officials about what the Ride for Dad's work meant—not in abstract terms, but in the concrete reality of research that might one day spare other men from what they had endured.

The cheque presentation brought together the full ecosystem of the effort: the volunteers who organize the rides, the survivors who give the work its moral weight, the researchers who translate donations into experiments and data, and the hospital foundation officials who shepherd the funds toward their destination. Dr. Lynne-Marie Postovit, head of Queen's Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, stood alongside John Leverette of the University Hospitals Kingston Foundation Board, both there to acknowledge what sustained community fundraising can accomplish in the world of medical research.

What makes the Kingston-Quinte Ride for Dad remarkable is not that motorcyclists raise money—plenty of groups do. It's the consistency, the scale, and the fact that they've built something that endures. Seventeen years of rides. Seventeen years of men and women in orange vests, on machines that roar, channeling that energy into the quiet work of science. The 2021 campaign was still running when Dr. Gee received her cheque, meaning the group was already thinking ahead to the next phase, the next research project, the next opportunity to turn a passion for riding into a weapon against disease.