Cycling event raises $2,300 for Haiti fund

The Prairie Life Fitness Center at Midtown Crossing raised about $2,300 for the UNMC Haitian Relief and Outreach Fund at its “Strength for Haiti” event on Friday evening.

The event was a cycling challenge held in the fitness center’s spinning studio.

Bicycles and riders could be sponsored with all proceeds going to the UNMC fund, which supports the medical center’s volunteer efforts.

UNMC’s second deployment of volunteers arrived in Haiti last week.

The 12-member team is working this week to help those wounded in the Jan. 12 earthquake.

“You have picked the most amazing group of people to send down here,” said Laura Egler, a nurse at The Nebraska Medical Center who is currently in Haiti. “Through all the stressfull conditions, they have continued to put their patients first, remain positive, work as a team and have shown the most phenomenal spirit I think I have ever seen.

“I am proud to be a member of such a team.”