Calling all department store bikes.
An Edmonton charity focused on helping kids get involved in sports is currently collecting bicycles for distribution in the spring.
Sport Central gave away nearly 2,700 bikes last year, and held its first-ever Bike Drive to help replace their stock. Organizers including the group's operations director, Josef Sloan, hope to collect the equivalent of 1,000 bicycles on Saturdays in September.
With Fountain Tire as a new sponsor this year, there are six drop-off hubs in Edmonton that will be taking in bikes and bike parts between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Sept. 14, 21 and 28:
- Bonnie Doon Centre (8330-82 Avenue) East Side of mall, near Entrance #2,
- Fountain Tire (11107-158 Street),
- Fountain Tire Distribution Centre (9633-266 Street, Acheson),
- Fountain Tire (6708-137 Avenue) South End of Londonderry Mall,
- Revolution Cycle (11445 Jasper Avenue), and
- United Sport and Cycle (7620 Gateway Boulevard) beside the front entrance.
Fear not if your plans don’t take you into the big city on Saturday: There are also 46 other donation locations listed online that can receive any day of the week.
Any bike or pile of parts is welcome, as are monetary donations. The organization has plenty of capable hands that will refurbish, repair and otherwise tune the donations over the winter. That said, bicycles with 20-inch and 24-inch tires, about the right size for kids ages six all the way to 12, are in particular demand.
Don’t overthink the value, either: Sloan said the hope is to be able to give out bikes that aren’t prohibitively expensive to maintain, as newer, higher-end bikes can be these days.
“Department store quality bikes like Sport Chek bikes, those kinds of things, are more or less what we're after,” he said.
Sport Central takes referrals from several St. Albert agencies, including St. Albert Family and Community Support Services, KidSport St. Albert, St. Albert Public Schools, St. Albert Baseball, St. Albert Further Education and St. Albert RCMP, and donates bikes to St. Albert families.
“For a lot of the clients that we have coming in through our doors annually, this is their first bike … in life,” Sloan said, “It was a tonne of excitement and a lot of smiles last year: We gave out 2,652 bikes to kids. It continues to grow and we're just trying to keep up with the demand.”
