Championing wellness through cycling
One of ArcBest’s core values is Wellness, which represents our company’s dedication to embracing total health and enabling our employees to live their best lives. When opportunities arise, we extend this commitment beyond our organization and support initiatives, like cycling, that encourage our people and communities to live healthier and happier lifestyles. This includes volunteering at, donating to and participating in cycling events that support a specific cause or provide a fun way to get active.
Here are some ways we’ve supported the cycling community in 2024:
True Grit Ride and 5K
For the second consecutive year, ArcBest served as a presenting sponsor for the True Grit Bike Ride and 5K — an event in Fort Smith, Arkansas, that supports the Community Services Clearinghouse’s mission to provide food for at-risk kids in the Arkansas River Valley and surrounding counties. Many ArcBest employees participated in the 5K or bike ride while several others volunteered, handing out fruit, energy bars, electrolyte powder packets, waters and ArcBest swag. The company’s donation at this year’s event also helped provide meals to 2,200 children.
Arkansas Interscholastic Cycling League
We also donated to the Arkansas Interscholastic Cycling League, helping purchase bicycles and other supplies for our local River Valley Marshals mountain bike (MTB) team. As part of the National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA), the Arkansas League was organized in 2015 to provide a fun, safe and high-quality mountain biking program for students in grades 6 to 12. Through this support, ArcBest continues to help improve the quality of biking experiences and competitions for student-athletes from all economic backgrounds.
All Kids Bike
As a Partner in Education to Fort Smith Public Schools, ArcBest made a matching contribution to one of the area’s elementary schools to help provide bikes, helmets, an instructor bike and a bike rack for its kindergarten classes. This effort is in partnership with All Kids Bike — an organization that’s on a mission to teach every child in America how to ride a bike in kindergarten PE class.
Arkansas Graveler
ArcBest also supported the Arkansas Graveler — a six-day gravel bike ride on some of Arkansas’s most iconic rural roads, spanning 340 miles from the Ozark mountains and forests to the Delta river bottoms. Participants biked 40-70 miles per day and camped along the route, enjoying swimming holes, fishing, live music and more.
Project Hero
Since 2018, ArcBest has partnered with Project Hero, an organization dedicated to helping veterans and first responders affected by PTSD, TBI and injury achieve rehabilitation, recovery and resilience in their daily lives and increasing awareness to combat the national mental health emergency posed by PTSD and TBI. Each year, Project Hero hosts several cycling events that serve as alternative therapy for PTSD and TBI and as physical injury rehabilitation, and we donate our U-Pack ReloCubes to transport their adaptive bikes from event to event. So far, in 2024, we have provided four ReloCubes to transport bikes for an Honor Ride in St. Petersburg, FL and three ReloCubes for the Texas Challenge Ride.
Chaffee Crossing Trail extension project
As part of ArcBest’s 100th-anniversary celebration in 2023, we donated $125,000 to build new trails in Chaffee Crossing, partnering with the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority and the Arkansas Colleges of Health Education (ACHE) to add approximately two miles to the current trail system. The new segments will connect ArcBest’s headquarters to the ACHE’s Celebration Garden and Wellness Park and to the Chaffee Crossing Historic and Entertainment District — helping increase mobility in the region and further support local wellness and recreational initiatives. Construction is set to begin later this summer.