Christmas Bike Build in Two Locations Sturday December 9th.
Double the pleasure double the fun. This year Ride for Bikes is extremely happy to announce that two locations will be receiving Christmas bikes this year. Our original group, all of the kindergartners in Artesia, NM will again receive 277 brand new 20 inch bikes this year. Along with them all of the kindergartners in Lovington, NM will also receive 234 new bikes. That is a total of 511 bikes that will be purchased, assembled and delivered in one day. The budget is about $27,000. We will need your help. This target is set so that no child is left out. Any dollar amount does make a difference and is greatly appreciated. If you are fortunate to be able to generously donate, please do. The cost of one bike is only $50 and brings years of joy to a child. So ask yourself, how many do you want to buy?
What can you do to help. First we will need your donations. You can donate by credit card or Pay Pal right on this website, just click donate. Or you can mail in a check payable to; Ride for Bikes GAF, PO Box 1344, Artesia , NM 88211-1344.
We also need volunteers to assemble and deliver the bikes. The bikes will be assembled at two different locations Saturday December 9th starting at 8 am. In Artesia the bikes will be assembled at the Artesia Center 612 N 8th Street just as last year. In Lovington bikes will be built at the Llano Elementary school on 1000 S 1st, Lovington, NM.
Volunteers will be needed to help assemble bikes, air up tires and tag them with the child’s name. The volunteers assembling bikes will need to bring their own tools; 10 to 15 mm open and box end metric wrenches and Phillips screw drivers. If you have not assembled a bike do not worry there are plenty of jobs that don’t require any tools or mechanical skills. The bike build is the time for families and groups to work together to do something for others. Children will be assigned as, “Bike Wranglers”, responsible for keeping the bikes moving through the assembly process and maintaining the area clean. It is a fun time for all.
The bike build is a great time for families, church groups, scouts and other organizations to come together and do something for the community. But honestly it begins with the donations. The Christmas Bike Program is a community effort. The money to buy the bikes comes from donations from individuals and businesses in the surrounding community. This fact is an important one for people to understand in that the money must be raised to fund the program from the surrounding area. This process has proven successful in the past and works very well in caring communities such as Artesia and Lovington.
Ride for Bikes, a 501 (c) (3) public charity, has awarded over 4,100 bikes and $64,000 in scholarships over the last eleven years to the children of south eastern New Mexico. To earn their bikes the students will make Christmas cards for the wounded troops. These bikes are very exciting gifts for the children and for some children, these bikes will be the only Christmas present they will receive. We hope you can find it in your heart to help.
Thank you and we’ll see you Saturday December 9th.
The volunteer jobs or stations are;
Bike Assembly, here are the folks that actually put the bikes together. This team can be a family, fire department, church, a business and so on. They will need 10 – 15 mm metric open and box end wrenches and Phillips screw drivers.
Bike Wranglers, mostly made up of kids although they need an adult as their leader. They move the assembled bikes around the room to the various stations. They are also responsible for keeping the place clean and trash picked up and cleaning up after words.
Inspection Section, this is where any experienced mechanics assemblers should help. This group is responsible for checking out the bikes to be sure they are assembled correctly, they also can spend time fixing anything that needs to be fixed.
Air Force, Here is where the bike tires get aired up. We will need a compressor set at 35 psi and a hose manifold system setup so there are about 12 air stations with the Schrader style inner tube tire nozzle.
Packers, This is where the bikes get tagged with the child’s name. They will need ribbon and scissors and several people the track the tagging and checking it. This is a popular spot for the people who don’t want to assemble bikes.
Loaders, Here is where the finished and tagged bikes get loaded into the horse trailers and trucks for delivery to the school. The card board boxes that the bikes come in are used to protect the bikes in transit.
Hosts and Hostesses, This is a group of a few people that are the greeters and general helpers/runners for the build leader. They will hand out gifts, help answer questions or find someone, meet and escort the press and take down the names of the volunteers and where they are from. Generally act as hosts and helpers.
Decide what you can do and volunteer.
