Motorcycles will roll through St. Charles County this weekend for the 18th annual Ride for Wishes, a two-day fundraiser benefiting Make-A-Wish Missouri & Kansas that includes vendors, silent auctions, games and prizes, and a police-escorted group ride spanning several municipalities. The event runs October 10 and 11 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days at St. Charles Harley-Davidson, located at 3803 West Clay Street in St. Charles, Missouri.
According to FOX 2, the signature police-escorted motorcycle ride begins at noon on Sunday, October 11, and lasts about 1.5 hours. Registered riders receive a complimentary lunch courtesy of a local pub and grill or St. Charles Harley-Davidson. Organizers describe the event as one of the oldest external fundraising mechanisms supporting the chapter, and per a post in the Ride for Wishes Facebook group, it is recognized as the second-oldest external fundraising event in Missouri benefiting Make-A-Wish, having originally been held in June before moving to its October slot in 2019.
A Decade and a Half of Community Giving
Ride for Wishes organizers report having raised over $302,000 cumulatively for Make-A-Wish Missouri & Kansas across its historical runs. The event did not take place from 2020 through 2022.
Registration costs $20 per participant, a fee that includes the complimentary lunch and directly benefits the charity, organizers say on the group's page. The 1.5-hour route cuts across St. Charles County. A motorcyclist stops traffic during the procession.
Why the Funds Matter for Local Families
Make-A-Wish Missouri & Kansas was founded in Springfield, Missouri, in 1983, according to the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce. Its headquarters are in St. Louis. Since its founding through early 2026, the chapter has granted more than 10,750 wishes to children with critical illnesses, as reported by Town & Style.
Yet demand continues to outpace capacity. More than 500 children across Missouri and Kansas remain on the chapter's wish waiting list, including roughly 200 children in the St. Louis metropolitan area, the same Town & Style report found. The average cost to grant a single child's wish experience through the chapter runs $17,043, covering travel, logistics, and family spending money, per the chapter's own figures published on its Make-A-Wish Missouri & Kansas site — meaning every few thousand dollars raised at events like this weekend's ride chips away at that local backlog.
The National Scale Behind a Local Ride
Nationally, roughly 27,000 children are diagnosed with qualifying critical illnesses each year, making a child eligible for a wish every 34 minutes, Hoodline has reported. A 2022 Make-A-Wish Impact Study surveying more than 3,400 parents, alumni, and physicians found that 91% of parents observed their child's wish experience improving physical survival odds.
This weekend's ride follows other recent regional efforts supporting the same chapter, including a 50K run through Forest Park last month that also raised money for Make-A-Wish Missouri & Kansas. For families on the waitlist in St. Charles County and across the St. Louis metro, the two fundraisers reflect a broader community push to shrink wait times one event at a time.
