What goes around ...

... comes around again, thanks to programs that recycle bicycles.

Jan Zanoff, left, and her husband Mike Zanoff scrub scrub bikes Saturday morning on the loading dock of the Little Rock warehouse which serves as the home base for the "Recycled Bikes For Kids" program.
Jan Zanoff, left, and her husband Mike Zanoff scrub scrub bikes Saturday morning on the loading dock of the Little Rock warehouse which serves as the home base for the "Recycled Bikes For Kids" program.

— The North Pulaski Board of Realtors needed a service project for 2010. And the new president for the year, Bruce Martin, needed an idea for that project.

That idea came last fall when he attended a program at Friendly Chapel Church of the Nazarene in North Little Rock. The speaker was Ron King, a Little Rock businessman who collects old bicycles, refurbishes them and gives them to churches and agencies to distribute to children in need.

Martin says the project “seemed like an easy fit” for the Realtors group, whose membership includes about 500 real-estate professionals in an area from Maumelle to Searcy.

It has been. Inspired by King’s program, known as Recycle Bikes for Kids, the Realtors created their own version - Spokes for Little Folks.

Any time clients are closing on a house or moving, the Realtors ask them if they have bicycles they no longer need. Martin collects the bikes by himself or with King’s help when enough calls come in.

So far the Realtors have collected 90 bicycles. On June 5, members gathered at King’s central Little Rock warehouse to start the first phase in their rehabilitation: washing about 75bikes and pumping up or repairing the tires.

“That’s probably the most extensive part of the work,” Martin says. “Then you go from there to the brakes and the handlebars and stuff.”

The bikes are rehabilitated to the point that they’re operational - with handlebars, seats,tires all in working order. “We’ve talked about [painting the bikes], but haven’t gotten that far yet,” Martin says, adding that many of the bikes are new, gently used or have simply been outgrown.

“What surprised me more than anything is the amount of people that have called and asked me to go pick these bicycles up,” he adds. “The people who give the bikes are real appreciative,” knowing that children who can’t afford bikes will get one.

So far, Martin’s group has gathered everything from small children’s bicycles to adult bikes. There have even been some mountain bikes.

This echoes the variety of the contributions King gets. Indeed, some of the recipients of his bikes have been adults. And, as he points out, there are some pretty big kids out there.

One of the situations King finds the saddest is to meet a 14-year-old who has never been on a bicycle.

“You think all children have had the opportunity to ride a bike, but they haven’t,” he says. “You can buy a decent bike at Wal-Mart for $75. To you and me, that may not seem like much,” but for some parents, $75 represents a week’s budget, he says.

Recycle Bikes for Kids got its start in 2008. King, owner of Refurbished Office Panels and a member of Fellowship Bible Church, got the idea when he saw members of the Little Rock Fraternal Order of Police donating bikes to the Rev. Hezekiah Stewart and his Watershed Human and Community Development Agency.

“I was very moved by that, because I remember my first bike,” King says.

With his own money, he began to purchase bikes, advertised in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette classifieds, with the intent of giving them away. Then his friends began telling him they had bikes they no longer used. “Within five months ... I had 450 bicycles,” he said. He has now given away more than 1,000 bicycles to local churches, ministries and agencies he knows will find them a good home. He hears about bicycle donations through word of mouth and his Recycle Bikes for Kids Facebook page.

Friendly Chapel Church of the Nazarene in North Little Rock passed along bikes from King on several occasions, according to the Rev. Paul “Brother Paul” Holderfield, pastor.

“The first batch that Ron gave me I just gave out as we were giving out our Christmas baskets,” Holderfield recalls.

King, he says, is “just the nicest guy. And he’s blessed a lot of people. ... Not just kids but people who just need a little hand up.” Including the homeless people the church helps. One such man in particular was a fellow who was staying in the Salvation Army shelter. The man secured a job at a west Little Rock restaurant, but had no car. “I said, ‘What about a bicycle?’” Holderfield recalls. He subsequently called King, who provided what Holderfield describes as the “Cadillac” of bikes.

The recipient’s reaction? “He started crying,” Holderfield says. “He said, ‘I ain’t never had nothing that nice.’”

First United Methodist Church in Sweet Home, which provides after-school and summer tutoring to schoolchildren, has so far received and distributed about 50 bikes. “Recycle Bikes for Kids ... was a perfect opportunity for us to award the children bikes for their hard work and achievements,” says the Rev. Barbara A. Douglas, senior pastor.

Chris Gray, 10, of Wrightsville, along with other members of the Dalton Whetstone Boys & Girls Club in Little Rock, received bikes from King as part of a bicycle safety course for children in 2009.

Chris had owned a bike before but had gone without one “a year or so” before receiving a bike through King. He wanted to ride again.

Thanks to King, he found himself the owner of a “new” red and black bicycle.

“I was really happy that I had one and I could ride around with my friends,” Chris recalls. “It’s a good idea, giving out bikes to kids that don’t have any.”

The North Pulaski Board of Realtors thought the same thing. Members set a goal to collect and rehabilitate 100 bicycles this year, a mark that they have met already. The group will continue to collect bikes and at Christmastime, deliver them to churches and organizations.

And afterward? Members also hope to continue Spokes for Little Folks - which, Martin says, is “going beyond what I would have thought.”

Family, Pages 31 on 07/21/2010

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