Motorcyclists from throughout the state and beyond normally kick off the summer season with the annual Blessing of the Bikes at Baldwin Municipal Airport, but this year’s blessing has been canceled due to concerns and uncertainty regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.
Organizer Bruce Shantz, whose nonprofit organization Para-Dice Motorcycle Club has organized the event for almost five decades, told the Daily News on Monday that the decision to call off the event for 2020 was made with a heavy heart.
“We decided (Sunday) on it, and we’re just going to go with it next year and hope for good weather — and no viruses,” Santz said. “This is the first time in 48 years that we’ve had to cancel.”
The fact that the blessing doubles as a fundraiser for veterans organizations certainly didn’t make the decision any easier.
“This is one of the hardest decisions we’ve had to make,” Shantz said.
Though Michigan is currently expected to be through the worst of the outbreak by the time the event would have taken place on the third Sunday in May, Shantz said it was a matter of being responsible and taking precautions.
“We don’t know for sure if (the virus) is going to be done by then or not,” he said. “Actually, we don’t think it will be done, and we didn’t want to take the chance of having all those people get together and maybe starting it all back up again.”
Shantz added that there were also economic and financial concerns associated with the decision to cancel the blessing, which tends to draw upwards of 5,000 people from states as far as Texas.
He said the members Para-Dice Motorcycle Club waited as long as they could to make the call, and they didn’t feel comfortable waiting any longer.
“All the vendors we usually have on the airport, the weren’t going to do it. And we figured it would just hurt the town,” Shantz said, adding, “It’s going to hurt Baldwin, regardless.”
Lodging was another concern, and one of the reasons why the club didn’t opt to reschedule rather than cancel the event.
“If we did it later on, there would be no motels or (hotels) available because they’ll all be booked for other travelers, and all vendors will already have something else going on,” he said.
Additionally, if they postponed, they’d be missing a key element of the service.
“We always have the blessing at the beginning of the season to bless riders to have a safe season, and if we were to go middle or end of it, we wouldn’t really be doing what we (set out to do),” Shantz said.
He said prospective participants have been understanding thus far, and he noted that many of them anticipated the blessing would be canceled before receiving confirmation.
“We’ve been fielding calls from Texas and Indiana — this isn’t just a Michigan thing,” Shantz said. “Many of them said, ‘We thought it might be canceled, but we just wanted to make sure.'”
The 2020 Blessing of the Bikes would have been the 48th annual event, and would have included a weekend of revelry and celebration at the airport prior to a formal blessing on Sunday, May 16.
This is the first time since the event’s inception that it’s been canceled, according to Shantz. He said the club intends to bring the blessing back in 2021, however.
“We’re not giving up,” Shantz said. “We’ll be back next year.”
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Source: Ludington Daily News