Give a bicycle to a child in need

Philip Martin teaches bicycle safety and noticed some kids didn’t have bikes. He took care of that

KITCHENER — Cycling Into the Future aims to give kids the freedom — and the confidence — to ride safely on city streets.

But sometimes some of the Grade 5 kids in the cycling skills course don’t actually own bicycles.

“It didn’t seem quite right to loan kids a bike, teach them cycling skills and then take the bike away,” said Philip Martin, the retired teacher who founded the program.

The volunteers who run the course do everything they can to make sure every kid who takes the course has a bike.

This weekend, they’re holding a bike drive in hopes of finding bikes for an anticischools pated 30 or so students who will need them.

For a child, a bicycle represents freedom and independence, Martin said, and he feels all kids should be able to enjoy that feeling of wheeling on your own steam.

“I would be thrilled if we got 30 bikes,” said Martin.

“Any bikes that aren’t needed this fall will be given away in the spring course, which usually involves more students and schools.”

The cycling skills program, developed here in Kitchener, is one of the most comprehensive school-based bicycle training courses in Ontario.

The course may be the only one in Canada that includes an on-road riding segment. More than 1,500 students have taken the course over the past two years.

Ainsley Schrader taught Grade 5 last year at Franklin school in Kitchener. Students at Franklin took the cycling course. Several of the students didn’t have bicycles before the program began, she said, but local families donated eight bikes.

The children who received bikes were thrilled, she said, and some of them later began cycling to school. Having a bike made a huge difference to many of the kids, some of whom were recent immigrants whose families didn’t have the means to buy a bike for their children.

“Everyone was really proud of their bikes,” Schrader said. “They were cool. They were all equal. Each one of them had a bike, and nobody felt left out.”

If a student doesn’t have a bicycle, volunteers first appeal to other families in the where the courses are being offered, in the hopes someone with a bicycle they no longer need can pass it on. If that doesn’t yield an appropriate bike, the child gets a bike refurbished by local volunteers. But now the group is turning to the larger community to help fill the need.

Last year, the program gave away 20 bikes. This spring, it gave away 32.

The program is looking for bikes with 24to 26-inch wheels. They can be dropped off this Saturday, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. at the Stirling Avenue parking lot of the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium.

The program will have a mechanic on hand to work on donated bicycles and do things like replace damaged cables or brake pads, Martin said.