8th Annual Johnson Family & Friends Bike Build

What a weekend: Started Friday, unloading bikes in boxes and setting up the tent at the South Orlando Kiwanis Club. We had over 90 people show up to build 350 bikes and trikes on Saturday. It was so much fun, and everyone seemed to have a great time. We served lunch to everyone, burgers & dogs, plus some great pot-luck sides and some of Jack Price's famous Upside-Down Pineapple cake, WOW!

Then we finished the bikes and loaded over 100 on two 7-ton USMC trucks. We have 4 Marines show up and they helped in many ways. But some of the most fun with them was having the kids jump up in the trucks and see what it was like wearing the helmets and flack jackets. Seeing a fully decked out Marine riding a girls 20" bike down the sidewalk is truly a sight to behold. The kids had a ball, and the ladies couldn't get enough of the men in uniform.

Today we had people with GAL/Legal Aid come by and pick bikes for their kids. We will be delivering bikes to Great Oaks Village and schools around our area. Making kids smile at Christmas is the goal of our bike build, "Building Something Real, That Makes a Real Difference.

Thank you to all that came and helped in any way. If you missed it, you missed something very special, not just for the kids getting the bikes, but for you own soul, it really does fill you up.

God Bless and Merry Christmas.

Pics to follow soon.

Build Something REAL, and Make a Real Difference!

This year's Bike Build will be held on Dec. 12th, 2009. We will gather at the Kiwanis Club of South Orlando at 9:00 in the morning and build 1,000 bikes. And we won't stop till they're all done. Food, fun and a lot of good work will be done, helping the kids of our community have the Christmas that so many of us had.


This years goal is 1,000 bikes and trikes and ride-ons for kids in our community. We need your help, with building of course, but also in raising the funds to buy the bikes. We buy directly from Huffy and also from local partner stores that give us great discounts on unassembled bikes. Then, on build day, we bust them out of their boxes and start building. In 2007, the year shown in the video above, we built 546 bikes in just over 4 1/2 hours. And that's with 95 % of the folks never having done it before. And they all worked great. In 2008, we built 600 bikes in just as much time, with over 130 great volunteers.


We gave 300 of those bikes to "Toys for Tots" last year, but we also gave 300 to local charities, schools, and churches that had lists of kids that were going to have little or no Christmas. We can't tell you the feeling, the feeling of knowing that kids, local kids, got something that we built, and put our heart and sweat in to. We made a difference in a child's life. You can too!

Here's how:

The average cost of a bike we buy is $30; that's still in the box. All the money we collect goes to pay just for the bikes. The facility, the tools, and the fun and food ( oh, did I mention the SOK famous BBQ) are donated. Again, all the money donated goes to buying the bikes. We'll need $30,000 to buy all 1,000 of the bikes we'll want to build.


You can donate to:
Bikes and Trikes for Tikes, Inc.
P.O. Box 622284
Orlando, FL 32862-2284

OR

Call: Thomas Kirk at 321-297-9024
for more information.





"Build something real, and make a difference in a child's life."

And here's how it all started.