Making a difference one bike at a time

About 5 years ago the Stow soccer team got involved with a local non-profit organization called "Elves and More". Each December, this group made up of hundreds of volunteers build about 1,000 bikes which are then brought to a neighborhood known for poverty and open their trucks so every child gets a bike for Christmas.

Elves and More has been doing this work for the last 9 years. Kyle has been going for about 5 years with his soccer team and their parents. This year, they had a pretty big group.

Grace and I joined their group for the first time last winter. This photo from 2013 was on the Elves and More Facebook page taken by their professional photographer.

This is our second year going as a family.

Grace took this photo using my big camera.  Not bad!

On the bike build day you have to get up early and go to a cold, kind of dirty warehouse which looks like this when you first arrive. The boxes along the back store the bikes and the red cups are to collect the covers for the tire caps (where you inflate the tires).

Everyone hustles all morning building bikes, hauling boxes to be recycled, filling tires with air, and moving the bikes to the storage areas until the trucks come the following Saturday to pick them up and they are delivered the next day.  It is all kept very secret until the last possible minute.

Together, the volunteers built about 1,100 bikes this year. It is a great experience and a good chance to do something nice for the holidays.

Even though we don't get to see the children who receive the bikes (we think they are going to Canton, OH this year) we know we helped make a difference in someone's life.