For 14 years, a generous soul in Moncton has been collecting donated bicycles and children’s tricycles and holding regular giveaways for families who can’t afford to buy one.
“The reward of seeing kids smile and ride off on their bikes is priceless,” said Krista Richard, organizer of the Bikes and Trikes for Everyone program.
Richard collects the bikes all year round and fixes them, while holding the giveaways between April and October. Last year, some 400 children were on her waiting list—like Younis and Aws, who put on their best Friday clothes and got their hair done for the big day when they’d ride off with their first real bikes.
Richard told CBC News that she’s given away thousands of bikes and trikes over the years, and says the fresh air and time spent outdoors has more benefits than just the health of the child.
“With all these video games, there’s no social contact and people don’t know who their neighbors are anymore,” Richard said.
“But if you get a bunch of kids on their bike, then they get to know each other and then the families get to know each other, and I think the more time you spend outside the better.”
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Giveaways always take place on Sunday, and there’s a small team of volunteers who mostly go to collect the donated bikes, but Krista does much of the rest herself. She even started keeping adult bikes as well, in case parents want to go riding with their kids.
It’s reminiscent of a story GNN wrote last year. Working Bikes estimates it’s taken in, fixed up, and given away some 150,000 bicycles that would have been destined for landfills. Many are given away in Chicago, more still the US, but Working Bikes has collaborators in Mexico, Venezuela, Albania, Uganda, Angola, Egypt, Cuba, and many, many more countries besides where their bikes are shipped.
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