LEWISTON — New local bicycle apparel company Pinebury got a boost from Patrick Dempsey during the Dempsey Challenge on Saturday when the celebrity sported one of its cycling jerseys.

The challenge raises funds for the Dempsey Center, which provides wellness services for cancer patients and families at no cost to them.

The company was one of the challenge’s sponsors this year. Every fundraiser who raised $3,000 or more was gifted one of its T-shirts featuring a Dempsey Challenge logo screen-printed on it, founder and President Kyle Rancourt said. Dempsey also received one of the company’s jerseys to wear during his 25-mile ride.

Though the company has only been selling its bicycle and active apparel for about a year and a half, the Lewiston resident’s connection to the challenge goes much further back, Rancourt said. His love of cycling drew him to the challenge about a decade ago.

“I just love what that event brings to our community,” he said. “You know, it’s one of the bigger cycling events in New England, and it’s right here in Lewiston, which is my home. And so, it always meant something to me because of that.”

Rancourt is also the co-founder of Rancourt and Co., a local shoe manufacturer. He first met Patrick Dempsey just before the pandemic when Dempsey won a tour of the company’s shoe factory as a prize during the Sugarloaf Charity Summit, which the shoe company sponsored that year, Rancourt said.

During the factory tour, the two talked for a couple of hours about cycling and the community, and shortly after Dempsey and then-Dempsey Center CEO Wendy Tardif invited him to be on the Dempsey Challenge Steering Committee for 2020, he said. The challenge was remote that year, with more than 2,500 cyclists joining the challenge virtually.

When Rancourt’s sister-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2022, his family’s connection to the challenge and the center deepened, he said. Now members of his family volunteer and ride for a more personal reason, as the center helped his sister-in-law through treatments. She is now in remission.

“It really hit home a few years ago, when my sister-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer in a very serious form of it and I encouraged her to use the Dempsey Center services,” he said.

“And she did, and she loved it, and they helped their family, her and her family a lot. … Her and her husband and her kids all volunteer at the Dempsey Challenge every year, and she volunteers at the Dempsey Center. So, you know, we have a direct connection to it now.”

Though there is no more steering committee for the challenge, Rancourt is now on the center’s special advisory group, he said.

There has been an uptick in apparel sales since the challenge, according to Rancourt. There is an online store and he opened a brick-and-mortar location in Portland earlier this year.

The cycling jerseys come in gray and navy blue and feature vintage double racing strips on the right arm, he said. Made from merino wool, a type of sheep, it provides warmth but is also lightweight and softer than typical wool.

He also sells apparel for other activities, such as hiking and running along with some casual wear.

The company rolled out its summer wool apparel this year, featuring breathable wool fabric meant to be worn in hot weather, also providing some sun radiation protection, he said. He has a small warehouse in Lewiston where he stores his inventory, makes shipments and provides customer service.

Where the material comes from and where it is made are important elements to Rancourt’s apparel business, he said. When he started the company he took great care in ensuring that the materials were sustainable and there was an adherence to strong manufacturing ethics.

“I literally wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t made in the U.S.,” he said. “Or somewhere that had a long history and tradition of making things of high quality and fair labor practices and standards.”

His clothes are all made in the United States through manufacturers in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and New York, he said. In the future he’d like to move some of that production to Maine but there are no factories in the state currently that could make his type of apparel at the level he wanted it made at.

Through his family’s shoe business, he knows what manufacturing business can do for the local communities in which they are based, he said, so it is important that his company make its product in the United States where local communities can benefit from it.

It also gives him an extra level of control over how his product is manufactured, ensuring that his manufacturing partners are paying their employees well and providing a good work environment, he said.

He can visit each of his manufacturing partners to see firsthand that good working conditions and manufacturing standards are being met, whereas he would not be able to do that easily with a manufacturer outside the United States, he said.

Helping to preserve a local manufacturing legacy in communities that have a long history of that in their economies is also an important factor for him, he said.

“There are parts of the U.S. — North Carolina’s one, for example, and Massachusetts as well — that for generations where there were these centers or hubs for apparel manufacturing in the world, and it’s almost gone away,” he said. “And so, I hope I can play a little part in preserving that tradition.”