Thank you Boulder, for making another Kids’ Holiday Bike Giveaway an amazing success! The smiles on kids’ faces tell the whole story. The annual Kids Holiday Bike Giveaway was held over two Saturdays in December 2022. We served 166 families and gave away 350 bikes to kids ages 2-12.
Bike Helmets Donated
Boulder Community Health staff volunteered at both events, fitting 429 helmets to all family members, even if they weren’t receiving a bike. Joan DePuy, who leads this helmet mission, said “This is an important opportunity for parents to model safe cycling behavior for their kids.”
Metro-wide Reach
Eighty percent of the families that received bikes live in the City of Boulder. It was a joy to be able to include some families from Boulder County and surrounding areas who had children that fit the bike sizes where we had an abundance.
This year we had an overwhelming request for bikes: 380 families / 660 kids signed up for bikes that left a waiting list of over 200 families.
One parent said: “When my family and I moved to Boulder about 2.5 years ago, we attended the bike give away event – we heard about it from school. Being new and having just moved, we appreciated getting the bikes. As you know, the COVID shutdown happened a few months after and it was really nice to use the bikes as a way to enjoy the outdoors.” MKH
We had families apply for kid’s bikes from as far away as Greeley, Littleton and Aurora. Some expressed that programs that they may have received bikes from in the past were unable to host their programs this year due to lack of funding or bikes.
An observation from Sandee Cirian, Program Manager: “While much of Boulder has recovered from the pandemic, many families are still affected and are not able to buy their child a bike. This service we provide is vital for our community, to be able to give a bike to keep kids active, ride to school and with their friends.”
Our Community Makes This Possible
50 volunteers from our Boulder community, along with Community Cycles staff, helped out on the event days for a total of 160 Volunteer hours to be sure the days flow smoothly for families. Some of our volunteers have been doing this for 10+ years and often a new volunteer will come back in subsequent years. We were thrilled to have the same group of teens join us for their third year.
Community Cycles collects donated bikes from the greater Boulder community all year long. In November our Bike Shop transitions to only fixing up kids bikes until we have 350+ bikes ready to ride by a new group of children in Boulder. Community Cycles relies heavily on volunteer bike mechanics for those 6-8 weeks to crank out bikes that are safe, reliable and FUN!
We rely on donations, both monetary and kids bikes, to help this program succeed. You can support the Kids Holiday Bike Giveaway with your monetary donation here and you can find out how to donate a kid’s bike here.
We couldn’t put on an event of this magnitude without the support of our sponsors. These donors help “seal the deal” and ensure a kids bike day is an experience not to forget.
This year the Kirk “Rocky” Derischsweiler Foundation stepped up their usual generous grant to round out a wonderful group: City of Boulder, Boulder Community Health, Boulder Neurosurgical & Spine Associates, Team Evergreen Cycling and Packard Dierking.