Background
Each year Christmas for Kids / Kiwanis has been able to find funding to provide new bicycles for a few kids out of the hundreds that receive presents through CFK...usually not enough bikes for all the kids who ask. On December 1st, 2011, the Lake Sun published a story about some Linn Creek Police and Advantage Metals volunteers donating time to refurbish gently used bikes. They were looking for a connection with area deserving children so that they did not need to get involved with the give-away portion. Wayne Marlow met with Trevor Dowdney, Chief of Police, and Jason Ling, Manager of Advantage Metals, and made arrangements to supply 40 bikes through CFK in December w/ 10 left over. Click Here To Read Lake Sun Story.
Future Vision
Ozark Coast Kiwanis along with other partners will provide bikes for kids on a year-round basis to local kids and even to disaster-struck areas such as Joplin (through local Kiwanis in Joplin). Our goal is to provide a refurbished bike per week apiece totaling approximately 100 bikes per year. There are already additional bike lovers who have offered to help refurbish bikes so the number of available bikes could exceed 200 annually.
Where Do We Get The Bikes?
The bikes that we refurbish come from multiple sources:
- Trashed bikes that have been sent to the recycling sites owned by Advantage throughout the state are harvested from usuable parts that can be used to refurbish bikes that can be loved by child who has never had a bike. Unusable parts of the recycled bikes will be sold for scrap metal with the proceeds used to purchase needed parts.
- Lake area Key Clubs will partner with area Kiwanis Clubs to collect unused bikes from high school families.
- Direct donations from the public.
- Direct donations of trade-in bikes from local bike stores.
- Direct donations of unclaimed bikes from area pawn shops.
Storage of Bikes
Faithbridge Church has offered to store some of the bikes and to hold month Bike Store hours for clients to pick out their bikes from the selection
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Bike Distribution
The plan is to distribute refurbished bikes throughout the year at the following events:
- Bike Store at Faithbridge Church / Christmas for Kids
We are also exploring scheduling bike distribution through the lake area's 3 largest food pantries: Share The Harvest, Hope House, and Camden Child Advocacy Council.
Labor Required and Volunteers
In addition to bike mechanics, we will need people to pick-up and deliver bikes. Current volunteers include:
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