Thank you Boulder, for making another Kids’ Holiday Bike Giveaway an amazing success! The smiles on kids’ faces tell the whole story. The 18th annual Kids Holiday Bike Giveaway was held over two Saturdays in December 2024. We served almost 200 families and gave away 350 bikes to kids ages 2-12.
Bike Helmets Donated
Boulder Community Health staff volunteered at both events, fitting over 400 helmets to all family members, even if they weren’t receiving a bike. Sadie Marthaller, 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.
We had an overwhelming request from families from as far away as Greeley, Littleton and Aurora. Some expressed that programs where they received bikes in the past were unable to host programs this year due to lack of funding or bikes.
An observation from Sandee Cirian, Program Manager: “Year after year, we provide a service that 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
Many 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 fifth year.
Thank you to 70+ volunteers who:
- Fixed up 350 kids’ bikes in 4 weeks.
- Fitted 400 helmets to kids and all of their family members.
- Helped 350 kids and parents try on countless variations of bikes and then choose the one they loved best.
- Directed traffic, loaded bikes into vehicles and cheerfully stood outside for hours.
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. 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: the City of Boulder, Kirk “Rocky” Derischsweiler Foundation, Team Evergreen Cycling, American Campus Communities, and Boulder Community Health: Foundation / Ambassadors / Trauma Services Level II.
