Who was Andy?
Andy was the life of the party. Not once in a while or just sometimes... ALWAYS! If you so much as saw Andy, you'd smile and laugh because you knew he'd have you cracking up in a matter of seconds. He had a larger than life heart, incomprehensible compassion for others, would always pick up the phone when you needed someone to listen and had a sense of humor like no other person any of us have ever known. Andy never met a stranger and if he met you even once, he remembered you. If you were lucky enough to have known Andy on more than just one occasion, he had a story about you. A hilarious one at that.
Why the foundation?
We created this 501(c)(3) foundation to remember, pay it forward and to honor our dear friend, Andrew John Zigler. Andy faced numerous challenges in his short 52 years of life, both physical and mental that unfortunately he kept mostly to himself. Andy's struggles ultimately took their toll tragically one evening in March of 2024. To know Andy was to love Andy and those of us closest to him want to keep the very best qualities about him alive and honor him by doing something he always wished he could have done himself.
Our Mission
Besides people, Andy's greatest passion in life was bicycles. We decided the best way to honor our dearly missed friend, his love of bikes, fondness of kids (being one himself) and to give back in his name would be to do a memorial bike ride called "Andy's Bikes from Heaven" Event proceeds are used to purchase goods for The Bike Elves of Beloit, WI. The Bike Elves are an already established organization that gifts refurbished bicycles to children in need. Since they do not accept cash donations, we purchase necessary items like bicycle parts, tire pumps, locks, helmets and lights. Remaining funds are donated to the UW Hospital Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Unit. We feel that if we can help even one person get the assistance they need early on and avoid some of the pain and darkness Andy experienced, we will have turned a tragic situation into a miraculous one.
