Samaritan Ministries hosts Tour De Llama benefit bike ride

A $45 bike ride through Yadkin County is meant to keep Samaritan Ministries feeding 100,000 people a year and sheltering 70 men each night at the Samaritan Inn. The nonprofit’s Tour De Llama fundraiser turns a summer ride into a direct boost for food, shelter and recovery programs that matter across the Triad.

Riders are set to gather at Divine Llama Vineyards in East Bend on June 13, 2026, with arrival at 7:30 a.m. and rides starting at 8:30 a.m. The annual fundraiser offers 21-mile, 38-mile and 60-mile routes through the flat-to-hilly countryside, giving cyclists a choice of distances while keeping the focus on Samaritan Ministries’ work. Registration is $45, and food trucks planned for the event include Sliders Street Food, I nga’s Apples, Philly Masters and Strange Trip Pizza.

Samaritan Ministries, founded in 1981 and based in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, says its mission is providing food, shelter and hope through Christian love. Its services include a soup kitchen, the Samaritan Inn men’s shelter and Project Cornerstone, a 13- to 18-month residential recovery program for men battling substance abuse. Together, those programs form the core of the organization’s safety net for people facing hunger, homelessness and addiction.

The fundraiser has become a reliable seasonal lift for that work. Organizers have said the event helps during the summer months, when donations typically decline even as need remains high. Summer can be especially harsh for people without housing because of sunburn, dehydration and heat stroke risks, which makes shelter and outreach more urgent rather than less. In 2025, 250 cyclists had already signed up for the ride, and the fundraising goal was $45,000, showing the event’s growing reach and the scale of support it is meant to generate.

Tour De Llama also gives the nonprofit a public face beyond its daily operations. The route, the vineyard setting and the llamas themselves help draw attention, but the real measure of the event is whether more meals are served, more beds are available and more men move through recovery. For Samaritan Ministries, the ride is not just a novelty. It is part of how the organization keeps its doors open when the heat is high and donations are harder to count on.