Tania Finlayson, the wife of Machinists District Lodge 751 member Ken Finlayson, is greeted at the union hall of
Machinists District Lodge W24 in Gladstone shortly after 4 p.m. Wednesday, June 12, as she completes a nearly 300-
mile journey that started Saturday morning, June 8, in Everett, Wash. Finlayson embarked on the journey to raise
money for Guide Dogs of America.
Wife of Machinist completes 300-mile
journey from Kirkland to Gladstone
‘Oregon Dash for
Puppy Cash’ raises
funds for Guide
Dogs of America
By BRYAN CORLISS
After traveling 275 miles on high-
ways, byways and bike trails, Tania
Finlayson wasn’t about to let some-
thing like a blistered chin stop her from
completing her “Oregon Dash for
Puppy Cash.”
Finlayson — confined to a wheel-
chair her entire life with cerebral palsy
— uses her chin to control her electric-
motor wheelchair, and when the pain
from her rubbed-raw chin got too bad,
she drove the last 25 miles with her
cheek.
“I’m impressed, but not the least
surprised,” said Tom Wroblewski,
president of Machinists District Lodge
751. “Tania’s determination has been
the most-important factor throughout
all of this effort.”
Finlayson arrived in Gladstone
shortly after 4 p.m. Wednesday, June
12, after completing a nearly 300-mile
journey that started Saturday morning,
June 8, at the District 751’s annual
Flight for Sight fun run in Everett,
Wash. She was greeted at the Machin-
ists District Lodge W24 Union Hall by
Wroblewski, officers and staff from
IAM Districts 751 and W24, and by a
handful of guide dog puppies in train-
ing and their handlers from Guide
Dogs of America.
Finlayson’s marathon ride was a
fundraiser for the California-based
charity, which provides guide dogs and
training in how to work with them free
of charge to people who are blind or
PAGE 8
have impaired vision from across
North America.
It was a grueling journey for Tania,
said her husband, Ken, who accompa-
nied her on the trip on his bicycle. Ken
Finlayson works as an information
technology staffer at District 751.
“She was really in a lot of pain there
toward the end,” he said. “Her chin, her
lips, her neck. But she didn’t let it slow
her down at all.”
The Finlaysons originally had
planned to travel from Seattle to
Spokane, but decided to make Oregon
their destination after the Washington
Department of Transportation said it
wouldn’t allow Tania to travel along
Interstate 90 in her wheelchair. Rather
than give up, Tania re-routed, and went
south instead of east.
“My Dad said, if you cannot change
the direction of the wind, adjust your
sails,” she explained, speaking through
a computer that she controls by typing
Morse code with her head.
Her journey started with the 10K
run at the Flight for Sight in Everett.
After that, she and Ken traveled on bi-
cycle trails from Everett to Redmond
on Saturday, then retraced their route
on Sunday to come back through Both-
ell into north Seattle on the Burke-
Gilman Trail. After making their way
through Seattle traffic on Sunday, they
ended Day Two in Auburn.
After that, they followed the route
of the annual Seattle-to-Portland Bicy-
cle Classic through Southwest Wash-
ington. They ended Day Three in Cen-
tralia, then pushed on the next day to
St. Helens, Ore., after crossing the
Lewis and Clark Bridge over the Co-
lumbia River.
Day Five’s journey was all in Ore-
gon.
The river crossing — on a narrow
bridge with heavy truck traffic — was
one of the worst parts of the trip, Ken
Finlayson said. “The bridge was an ex-
perience that I don’t think anyone who
was involved in that will ever forget,”
he said. “I’ve never been so stressed
out in my life.”
In contrast, one of the best parts was
the reaction from people they met
along the way, many of whom had
heard about Tania’s trek from media
reports and came out to cheer her on as
she and her support team rolled
through their towns.
“We even had people reach into
their pockets and pull out $20 bills for
Tania,” said Ed Lutgen, a District 751
staff officer who was part of “Team
Tania,” the support group that followed
her on the ride. “That kind of support
made us all feel good.”
Finlayson’s goal was to raise
$42,000, which is what it costs Guide
Dogs of America to breed, raise, train
and pair one service dog with one blind
person. It appears she has fallen short
of that goal. At presstime she had
raised more than $26,000, which
would still make her “Oregon Dash”
one of District 751’s biggest-ever
fundraisers for Guide Dogs of Amer-
ica.
“I’m OK with it,” Ken Finlayson
said. “But Tania says she’s not going
to stop fundraising til she gets the
whole $42,000.”
To support Tania and the Oregon
Dash, go online at http://Dashfor-
Cash.kintera.org or www.IAM751.org/
Dash4Cash.
STAT OF THE MONTH
America’s most typical income-
earners, analysts at Sentier Research
are now estimating, took home this
past January 7.3 percent less, after in-
flation, than they earned in January
2000 — and 4.5 percent less than
they earned in June 2009, the year the
Great Recession officially ended.
(Editor’s Note: This article is from
the Machinists News, a blog focused
on news of interest to members of the
International Association of Machin-
ists & Aerospace Workers District
Lodge 751.)
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
JUNE 21, 2013