Project Bicycle Love

We love that Project Bicycle Love can help young kids experience the joy of riding their first bike, or for the older recipients, the freedom and independence a bike can provide. Our desire is to make a difference in the lives of foster youth through the simple gift of a bike, which can provide physical and mental health, exercise, freedom, independence, responsibility, and fun.

While a bike is a physical object that can provide fun, exercise, freedom, independence, and transportation, our desire is that it would be so much more to these kids. Our hope is that this gift of a brand new bike would help kids know that they are special, loved, and valued.

We get nominations and requests for bikes from social workers, school counselors, caregivers, CASA’s and others in the foster community. They tell us a little bit about their story and why the child would benefit from a bike, and we try to match the need with the appropriate bike (age, use, experience, etc.).

We sponsor a “Build-a-Bike” party, where we invite local bike enthusiasts and other volunteers to come help us build and assemble the bikes. We also have volunteers who make and tie bows on each bike, as well as write individual, personalized notes of encouragement to each child receiving a bike. In addition to our Christmas bike giveaway to individual kids, we have also provided bikes for foster parties and events, group homes, transitional living homes, local schools, and a significant number of requests arising from the COVID-19 crisis.

We have established a network of connections in the foster care community that help connect us with kids in need.

In addition, Project Bicycle Love utilizes hundreds of volunteers to help us build bikes and write encouraging notes to each child.

We have established relationships with vendors for discounted supplies and have ongoing connections throughout our community for fundraising and invovlement.

We have provided 375+ bikes to kids in our community from our 3 Christmas bike giveaways in 2017, 2018, and 2019.

We are hoping to expand year-round and provide bikes to kids in need on an ongoing basis. One idea is to expand to birthday bikes, where we provide bikes for foster kids on their birthdays, as a way to make them feel special and valued. Lots of organizations have Christmas events, but very few foster kids receive bikes or other gifts for their birthday!