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Photo by Sam Harrel

FAIRBANKS -- Blake Matray has the money to help people, he just needs to get the word out about it.

Last year, the Two Rivers musher, along with his wife, Erin, and their neighbors Walter and Deborah Lanigan, founded the Sled Dog Fund, a charity that uses sled dogs and mushers to raise money for children with disabilities.

Since its inception last October, the fund has raised about $7,000, with some of the money going to the Alaska Center for Children and Adults and an autism service dog for a local child. Despite those gifts, Matray still has plenty of money on hand he would like to give to children with disabilities.

“I knew we would start out slow, because these days there’s a lot of new nonprofits,” he said. “One of the struggles we face is just getting the word out about our existence.”

Matray is taking nominations through the fund’s Web site, www.sleddogfund.org, to sponsor disabled child athletes for races of any kind nationwide. He is also seeking to give funds to other children in need of service dogs or wheelchair ramps for their homes.

The fund has an agreement with an Illinois-based company to provide wheelchair ramps for up to 40 percent off the normal cost.

“I simply have the desire to help,” Matray said of his reasons for starting the fund.

Matray has been involved in charitable work since his time at the U.S. Air Force Academy nearly two decades ago, when he volunteered with the Special Olympics. He left active duty in 2000 and joined the Alaska Air National Guard, but continued to contribute to the Special Olympics. Still, he wanted to do more to help disabled children.

“There’s not a lot of spare time with the sled dogs and my job as a pilot in the Air Guard, so I thought maybe I’d combine something,” he said. “I thought maybe I could use the visibility the sled dogs provide to help promote awareness and raise money for children with disabilities.”

Starting in September, Matray will also raise more money for the fund by giving short introduction to mushing lectures at Prospector Outfitters.

“The No. 1 rule is that you don’t let go,” said Matray’s wife, Erin, who jokes she “married into” the mushing life.

The Sled Dog Fund is the first charitable group of its kind that brings dogs and mushers together to raise money for a good cause. Later this year, the Sled Dog Fund will begin raising money by recruiting mushers sponsored by groups or people.

The children the charity helps won’t actually have any contact with the sled dogs since giving them sled rides would be far too expensive.

“We didn’t want to spend the money we take in on insurance,” Matray said.

Still, he doesn’t rule out the possibility that in the future he might certify some his nearly 30 Siberian Huskies as therapy dogs, noting that several of them are great with visitors.

Originally from the suburbs of Chicago, the life of a dog musher is a far cry from how Matray grew up in Illinois. He first became interested in the sport when he was stationed in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula right out of the Air Force Academy, and he witnessed the Upper Peninsula 200 dog race.

“I thought this looks cool, and I bought a book about mushing,” he said.

As his interest grew, he met Brad Pozarnsky, the only North Dakotan to ever enter and finish Iditarod, and bought two Siberian puppies from him. As Matray’s kennel grew, so did his aspirations, and he entered the 2003 Iditaroad, though he was only about one-third of the way into the race to Nome when some of his dogs became ill.

“There really wasn’t anything I could have done to prevent that,” he said.

After entering smaller races during the past few years, Matray is poised to run the Iditarod again in 2009, but with a good cause in mind this time.

“I entered the Iditarod with the goal of finally getting to Nome and raising more awareness and to help fundraising,” he said. “This will help a great deal in getting the word out worldwide.”

Between training for the race, running the Sled Dog Fund and flying for the Alaska Air Guard, Matray knows he has a tough few months ahead of him, but he’s up for the challenge.

“The days get pretty tiring, but I try to remember that I’m trying to help children,” he said.