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The 2026 YANA Ride: Your Passport to Adventure
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The YANA Ride is back for 2026, bringing together riders of all ages, abilities, and disciplines in one incredible community-wide event supporting local families.
Last year, YANA supported 300 children and pregnant mothers with nearly 600 medical trips. Every rider, fundraiser, volunteer, sponsor, and supporter helps ensure that no Comox Valley family faces a child’s medical journey alone.
Participating is as easy as 1-2-3!
1. REGISTER & RALLY
Round up your friends, family, coworkers, classmates, neighbours, or riding crew and register as a team!
Fundraising is more fun together, and every dollar raised helps support local families when they need it most. Prefer to ride solo? No problem. Individual riders are always welcome too.
Register by July 1 and you’ll be automatically entered to win a $500 Canadian Tire gift card in our Early Bird Draw.
2. RIDE & RAISE
Join the YANA Ride community on Sunday, August 16 and turn your ride into support for local families by collecting pledges along the way.
Need more flexibility? You can also ride any time between August 1 and August 15.
New for 2026, riders can explore the Comox Valley through a network of YANA Ride Hubs and Passport Checkpoints. Ride to participating locations, collect stamps in your YANA Ride Passport, discover new places, connect with fellow riders, and enjoy special experiences offered by our community partners.
Choose your own route, set your own pace, and create an adventure that’s uniquely yours. Whether you’re aiming to collect every Passport stamp or simply enjoy a ride with family and friends, every pedal pushed helps support local YANA families.
3. REUNITE AT PARTY IN THE PARK
On Sunday, August 16, riders, families, friends, sponsors, volunteers, and supporters will come together at Comox Marina Park for an afternoon of celebration, connection, and community spirit.
Party in the Park is free to attend and open to everyone.
Highlights include:
- Finish line and Congratulation Stations
- Sponsor-donated prizes for every fundraising rider and the official 2026 YANA Ride t-shirt for the top 200 fundraisers
- Beer garden
- All-day live music and entertainment lineup
- Activities for kids, and kids at heart
- 50/50 raffle, Golf Ball Drop, raffles, giveaways and draws
- Silent Auction loaded with bike gear and accessories
- Your favourite Marina Park food trucks and seaside snacks
- Plenty of surprises still to come!
Whether you’ve spent two weeks riding, fundraising, collecting Passport stamps, volunteering, cheering from the sidelines, or simply supporting the cause, Party in the Park is where the YANA Ride community comes together.
Ready to Join the Ride?
Register today, rally your team, start planning your adventure, and help ensure local families receive the support they need when medical care takes them away from home.
Staying Close When It Mattered Most: The McIntosh Family’s Journey with YANA
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Originally published by the Comox Valley Record on Wednesday, July 29, 2026
Every family’s journey to welcoming a child has its own story. For Cameron and Melissa McIntosh, theirs took an unexpected turn at the 20-week ultrasound when they learned their son, Caelan, would need specialized medical care. Before he was even born, the family was travelling to Victoria for additional screenings and ultrasounds. When doctors determined Caelan would need to be delivered at BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, during an already overwhelming time, YANA stepped in to take one major worry off their shoulders by arranging accommodations close to the hospital in both Victoria and Vancouver.
At just one day old, Caelan underwent surgery at BC Children’s Hospital, and Melissa and Cameron were able to focus on being by his side without the added worry of accommodation planning and expenses.
“It’s very nice just to have YANA help us out with accommodations, and everything was set up for us, so we only had to go down and worry about him [Caelan]. It takes a lot of the stress off of the planning,” shared Cameron and Melissa.
Before YANA became part of their own journey, the McIntosh family was already familiar with the organization’s impact in the Comox Valley. They understood the importance of keeping families close together during times when medical care requires travel away from home. After experiencing that support firsthand, their appreciation for YANA grew even stronger, inspiring them to become more involved.
Melissa, in particular, has continued to give back as a dedicated YANA volunteer, lending her time and helping wherever she is needed, with Caelan sometimes joining her. Cameron has always had a passion for mountain biking; he and Melissa now get to share that love of cycling with Caelan. Their first YANA Ride was during Melissa’s pregnancy with him, and now Caelan is riding alongside them, making this year’s Ride a meaningful full-circle moment for their family.
Now in their fifth YANA Ride as a fundraising team, the McIntosh family is giving back to help ensure other families receive the same support they did. This year, they’re working toward their fundraising goal of $1,000, riding to visit several Passport Checkpoints along their route, and volunteering at Party in the Park to celebrate with the YANA community.
For one member of the team, Ride Day can’t come soon enough. Caelan is especially excited to visit the Family Fun Zone and take on the Little Wheelers Track, where he’s looking forward to showing off his biking skills.
Every dollar raised through the YANA Ride helps ensure Comox Valley families travelling for medical care can stay together without the added burden of accommodation costs. It’s the support that allows parents to focus on their child during some of life’s most difficult moments.
To support Cameron and Melissa’s fundraising efforts, register for the 2026 YANA Ride, or learn more about the community celebration at Party in the Park on Sunday, August 16, visit www.yanacomoxvalley.com.
✨ A heartfelt thank you to the Glacier Newcomers Alumnae Association for inviting Kelly to speak at your recent meeting and for welcoming her so warmly! ✨
Kelly was absolutely thrilled to attend and share more about YANA, the families we support, and the incredible impact of community care. We are so grateful for groups like yours who take the time to learn more, ask thoughtful questions, and connect so deeply with our mission. And on top of that, thank you for your contribution to YANA. We are so incredibly grateful!! 🤍
Our hearts are so full! 🩵💛🧡💚
Thanks to the Tom Harris Fund for Families for their incredibly generous $1,000 donation to YANA.
Every act of kindness, every dollar raised, and every person who chooses to support YANA helps remind local families that they are not alone.
Shoutout to Boston Pizza for supporting YANA through their Looking After Local community program with their Valentine’s Day fundraiser! An amazing $538 was donated to YANA!! ✨
Who doesn’t love pizza AND supporting YANA all in one?
🍕🩵💛🧡💚🍕
A huge THANK YOU to Friends of YANA for organising their 3rd Annual Dance for YANA and raising an amazing $2,715 for YANA families!
From the music and laughter to the dance floor and community spirit, this event was such a fun reminder of how this community comes together to support one another. Every ticket, every dance move, and every moment helped make a difference for local families!
Thank you to everyone who attended, donated, danced, volunteered, and helped make this special night happen. 💃🎶🪩
♻️ Community supporting community, we LOVE to see it! ♻️
A huge thank you to Courtenay Return-It Depot for choosing YANA as the recipient of their new monthly charity donation initiative! Through this incredible program, one employee each month selects a local organisation close to their heart for the team to support, and this month, YANA was honoured to be chosen.
A special shoutout to Quinton (pictured!) for selecting YANA. Your support helps remind YANA families that an entire community is standing beside them.
GiGi: 100 years of love, kindness, and community 💚🧡💛🩵
For her 100th birthday, Elinore Squires (“GiGi” to so many who know and love her ♥️) chose to celebrate in a way that reflects the life she’s lived: by bringing people together. In lieu of gifts, friends and family were invited to donate. The result was nothing short of extraordinary…an incredible $10,000 donation for YANA families!
Because of GiGi, when Comox Valley families are facing their hardest days, they’ll feel the strength of a community surrounding them, lifting them up, supporting them, and reminding them they are never alone.
This is more than a birthday.
This is a legacy of love in action.
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to everyone who celebrated with GiGi in such a meaningful and generous way. And to GiGi, all of us at YANA wish you the happiest 100th birthday!!!
Pictured Left to Right: Koa, Janice, GiGi, Jim, Kelly, Quinn, Chase, Erin
✨ The sweetest kind of support… literally! ✨
A huge shoutout to Tenley, Winslow, and Mila from Robb Road School, who raised an incredible $428.75 for YANA! 💛
As part of a Grade 4 class project, students chose a charity to learn about, present on, and support, and we are so honoured they chose YANA.
Through two bake sales, two candy skewer sales 🍪🍭, and even door-to-door support from neighbours, these three raised every dollar to help local families.
We are so inspired by this kind of next-gen kindness. Thank you for your big hearts and amazing impact right here in the Comox Valley! 💫
🚨💛 Huge thanks to Joyce and the awesome team at FortisBC for their generous $300 donation through the Employee Giving Program!
Support from kind people like Joyce and community-minded companies like FortisBC helps YANA Comox Valley keep showing up for local families when they need it most.
Your generosity makes a real difference, and we’re so grateful to have support like yours in our corner. Thank you! 🙌💛
