Our KNX Hero of the Week, Elaine Pease of the Burbank Bike Club, is gifting bikes and boosting hearts!
Elaine Pease (center) and a fellow volunteer Andrew Smith, standing among dozens of donated and restored bikes.Courtesy of Elaine Pease
She started the program in 2009 when she gave bikes to a few kids whose names were on a Salvation Army angel tree for Christmas.
“I worked for the city of Burbank at the time, and there was an angel tree put up by the Salvation Army in our lobby, and all the employees were encouraged to get gift requests from the less fortunate kids,” she told Heroes host Heather Jordan. “Near Christmas, I noticed that all the big ticket items, items like bikes, were still hanging on the tree, and that's when I got the idea to perhaps get some used bikes and fix them up and donate them to the kids.”
Courtesy of Elaine Pease
Now they donate close to 200 bikes a year.
“If you look at it cumulatively over the years since we've started, we've taken in over 3,500 bikes, and many of those we've kept out of the landfill by restoring them and putting them back in service,” she said.
The bikes, she says, have stories behind them.
Courtesy of Elaine Pease
“One of the more moving stories was an older couple who had a bike that their son had during the 1994 earthquake,” she said. “Their son lived in Northridge in an apartment building, and he had passed away when the building collapsed, but they had saved the bike for all those years, treasuring it to remember how much he loved it. At a certain point, they decided they wanted someone else to be able to enjoy it as much as he had, and they brought it to us. We had a little ceremony in honor of their son, and we found the perfect home for that bike.”
Elaine says there are some amazing volunteers who help get the used bikes ready.
“The volunteers come from all walks of life and from all over Southern California,” she said. “One actually rides his bike in from Chatsworth to Burbank on Saturday mornings to help us restore bikes. The volunteers are the beating heart of the program, and I think the magic they work is why Santa gives us two thumbs up.”
Check out our other KNX Heroes here.
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