Saturday morning marked the end of an arduous journey for Rodney Stafford.
He's just completed a 3,400-kilometre bike trip from Toronto to our city, in honour of his daughter Tori. The eight-year-old was abducted from her school in April, and her remains were found in a farmer's field near Guelph Ontario on July 19th. Two people have since been charged in her death.
Stafford says he had three goals for the ride : raise awareness about child abduction, collect money for Child Find, and find a way not to give in to what could easily be a crippling tragedy.
"You can never make sense of something so completely senseless, but if you don't try to put one foot, or in his case, one pedal in front of the other, what's the point?" he told The Canadian Press before his trip began on August 5th.
"You have to have a reason to go on."
And go on he did, with CTV Edmonton catching up to the determined cyclist east of our city on Thursday. Stafford said the support of fellow Canadians driving on the Trans-Canada bolstered him during his trek.
"Every honk gives you a little more motivation, because people know what you're doing, and basically letting me know the word is getting out there, and that's exactly what I wanted," he said.
While Stafford said he struggled with raw emotions during his trip, he says having a mission also eased some of his pain.
"It's still really fresh. I've had a lot of times where I've broke down along the road," he said.
"Now... Kilometers For Kids is just about over and I don't want it to be."
While that may be true, Stafford didn't waste time continuing his mission, taking to West Edmonton Mall's Centre Stage on Saturday afternoon, where quite literally putting the issue of missing children in the spotlight.
The event, hosted by Tribute to Tori : Kilometers for Kids, in partnership with Child Find Alberta, saw dozens of children entered into a database and their parents educated on how to prevent an abduction.
"It doesn't just happen overseas in the movies, it happens everywhere and it's a reality," said Stafford.
"I'm trying to do what I can to get it out there for people to realize that nobody's safe."
After Saturday's event, Stafford says he plans to head down to Jasper, where he will climb a mountain his daughter once visited with her mother. Since he wasn't able to make that trip, he will retrace her steps, releasing a memento in her honour.
"I want to get up there, release one purple balloon as close to her as I can," he said.
Stafford also plans to have his photo taken on top of the mountain, so it can be photo-shopped into the image of Tori and her mother at the exact same location.
The hope, he says, is an image of his little girl surrounded by her loved ones will replace the image most Canadians have come to associate with his daughter : that of her walking away from school with a stranger, never to be seen or heard from again.
So far, Stafford has raised an estimated $22,000 for his cause.
If you'd like to make a donation to his fundraiser, you can visit any TD Canada Trust bank location.
The branch number is 227 and the account number 521-0920.
-With Files from CTV's Scott Roberts
