Our 2010 Bikes for Kids program has come to a close.

This year's program was a great success! 72 bikes were given away during this summer's Bikes For Kids program.

Bikes for Kids 2009 was a great success!
Many kids had a exciting and active summer because of your generous giving!

Article from the 2009 Bikes for Kids co-ordinator:

My name is Michelle MacLean and I am the Bikes For Kids coordinator for 2009. I’m going to give you a brief history of my life, how I got involved with this program, and how YOU can get involved too and give something great back to the kids in your community.

            Firstly, I graduated last year from Northumberland Regional High School, home of the Nighthawks, and took the next big step and went to College. I am now attending the Nova Scotia Community College, Pictou Campus, and am taking the Business Administration program, for which I am going to be going into the Marketing concentration, then Public Relations at the Waterfront Campus in Dartmouth. In high school I was on several committees, attended a lot of events in the community, and this is how I met Dodie Goodwin. I was soon on the Tri-School committee, working with the 3 high schools and United Way to create a joint event. Keeping in touch with Dodie throughout High School and College, I contacted her this past semester seeing if there were any positions available at the United Way of Pictou County office in relation to marketing and public relations, and BAM! I got the job as Bikes For Kids coordinator.

            The program started on April 27^th will run for 14 weeks. We were lucky that we received extra funding from the NS Summer Student Careers Program and I was able to start a couple weeks early, compared to previous years. I have met Clint Snell at Pictou County Cycle and he has helped promote the program at his store and also gave me a few pointers about how to make to program even better. I have also gone to the ECFM radio station to do an interview and a spot about Bikes For Kids. Thanks to Dorthy and Frank Lodge, we have a shop to use to repair our bikes in this year. I would also like to thank the New Glasgow Kinsmen, United Commercial Travellers, The News and East Coast FM for their continued support.

            I am looking forward to this summer because I know by the end, a lot of kids in Pictou County are going to be extremely excited that they now have a bike to play on thanks to everyone who volunteers, donates, and put up posters and help get the word out.

            The drop off locations for any bikes that need to find a new home are the YMCAs (Pictou and New Glasgow).  If you would like to find out more about how you can volunteer, apply to receive a bike, or how you can donate a bike, please contact me, Michelle, Bikes For Kids coordinator, by phone at 755-1677 or by email at bikesforkids@ns.sympatico.ca

May 29th, 2009

Bikes For Kids growing each day with help from Volunteers

Many hands make light work, but many extraordinary people do admirable things. This is how the volunteer bike repairers for Bikes For Kids would be described. Over the past month, people of all abilities, experience and backgrounds have come together to work collaboratively on repairing bikes for the kids in the community who do not have one. With the expertise help from Kevin Waller and Clint Snell from Pictou County Cycle, Alan Klein who is Bikes For Kids head repair-man, as well as all the fantastic volunteers, Bikes For Kids has been able to repair more bikes than ever in a short amount of time. This is what Bikes For Kids is all about, giving bikes to kids, but it also brings members of the community, who would not have met otherwise, together and do something for a child they may have never met before.
 In the month of May, Bikes For Kids has grown phenomenally, with getting close to 100 bikes donated by people in the community, having 16 volunteers to come out and repair the bikes, receiving 36 applicants and giving away 11 bikes. With the help of the YMCAs, both in New Glasgow and Pictou, as well as the recreation departments of Pictou, Pictou County and Stellarton, who are all acting as drop off locations for bikes that are to be donated, Bikes For Kids is able to be more productive than ever. Treton Recreation has also extended an invitation to Bikes For Kids to Trenton Park’s opening day on June 14th, so if you would like more information, you can come find out more at the park! 
If you would like to get involved with Bikes For Kids, either by donating, volunteering or applying, please contact