There are hundreds of charities worth donating your time, effort, and money. We knew from the beginning our small contributions to other major charities would be absorbed in the cost of bookkeeping, staff, and daily operations. We also realized we could not cure a long standing disease or medical condition. To rectify these things we wanted to choose a charity that received very little attention, funding and medical advances. We wanted to see fast results and wanted our passengers contributing the funds to see them as well. The key word is SEE.

Our cause is kidney dialysis for several reasons. Unlike other diseases, there is NO cure for kidney failure, unless a rare perfect kidney donation is received. There is no pill or medication to cure or even slow this medical situation. Medical science’s answer has been the same for decades. To prolong the patient’s life a few more years they must be tethered to a machine that cleans the entire blood supply. Dialysis also robs them of their strength and finances.

A patient must undergo dialysis every 2 to 3 days just to stay alive and they never know what the end result will be. This restraint leaves them very little or no opportunity to travel. There comes a time when most terminal patients want to travel, see the world, and visit with family and friends. Kidney dialysis patients are also generally in the average age group of our rally participants which makes it easy to relate to their situation and helps them to socialize with us at our rallies.

Our goal was to provide an opportunity for motorcycle enthusiasts or their friends on dialysis to attend our HOHS rallies. We want to give the patient a chance to travel, spend some valuable time socializing with a couple thousand new friends and hopefully having the time of their lives. The only medical treatment anyone currently can offer.

After discovering there were a few medical companies that provided kidney dialysis aboard cruise ships we began our research. We quickly found that medical expenses whether at sea or land is costly, to the tune of $10,000. To contract the services of Dialysis at Sea, the medical company we chose to provide the Dialysis services to our HOHS Rally Passengers, it costs a minimum of $10,000.00.

We announced our charity idea at our 1st Annual Hogs on the High Seas Rally in 2003. Response was overwhelming. 805 rally participants contributed $8,270.00 to help meet the contracted price. That amount only paid for the service, it did not pay for the treatments which cost, $ 495.00 per visit, with usually 3 per week. Most insurance companies will reimburse the dialysis patient after the cruise, but the patient has to pay the total cost of the treatments upfront. However, we were stunned to discover that uninsured military vets and Medicare patients didn’t qualify for re-imbursement through the Veterans Administration or Medicare for receiving the very same treatments they would receive at their home dialysis treatment centers.

Want to help with our HOHS Dialysis Fund Charity, just register for our rallies, and get a friend to register with you. Have the time of your life while making a dream come true for a dialysis patient. We hope, once the Mexican Rivera rally grows next year that we can also pay for the caregiver portion of the dialysis patients cabin and maybe one day even there airfare, making it a completely FREE vacation for these deserving patients and there companions.
We would also like to note that scores of cancer & other medical condition patients attend our rallies each year for rehab, and for some as their last Rally of a Lifetime.