West Palm Beach - That old bike rusting in your garage doesn't have to go to the dump.
How about donating it to Jack the Bike Man? You can do that and make a child happy this Christmas.
Long before such gadgets as PlayStations, Wiis, and iPods were invented, a shiny bicycle was often at the top of Christmas wish lists. And this December about 300 needy area children may not see that dream realized.
"This year the donations plummeted," said Jack Hairston, 68, known in West Palm Beach's north end as Jack the Bike Man. "The people who used to give me $100, they only had $25 and the people who used to send $25 they only had $20. And then a lot of them had nothing."
Hairston hopes his nonprofit group, Jack the Bike Man, Inc., can keep the two-wheeled tradition alive, especially in an age when making sure children stay active outdoors can be a struggle. Since 1999, he has given thousands of bikes to the children of immigrant workers, mostly from Guatemala and Mexico.
Last year he gave away 534 bikes and planned to donate 600 this Christmas. When he looked in the warehouse, at 4401 Broadway, he was 300 short.
"He gave all my friends bikes but a lot of kids won't have a gift if they don't get a bike from Mr. Jack," said Luis Morales, 13, a seventh-grader at Roosevelt Middle School.
The bikes come to him from all over Palm Beach County. People find them on the side of the road. Sometimes they've sat untouched for years in a garage.
If Hairston can't repair a donated bike, he salvages any usable parts. If someone donates an adult bike, he repairs it and sells it to buy parts he needs for children's bikes.
David Loricchio was looking for a bike and saw an ad on Craigslist about Hairston's charity.
"I saw where he donates the proceeds to charity so I thought instead of going to the bike shop, I'd buy it here," said Loricchio, of West Palm Beach. "That was a good thing for me help to a charity that I thought worthwhile."
The idea of giving kids two wheels to ride was born when one of the neighborhood's kids couldn't fix his brakes.
"He kept banging into the curb to stop it in front of my house," Hairston said. "So I took a pair of pliers and adjusted it and so went the rest of the story."
After Hairston fixed that bike, other neighborhood children started bringing other bikes to him. As word spread, people offered Hairston broken and new bikes. An Okeechobee woman even offered a van.
That first year, Hairston fixed and donated 25 bikes.
"Who would have thought it would be like this?" he said. "It gives me such a thrill to watch these kids' eyes open so wide when they get a bike. That's what this is all about."
For more information or to reach Hairston, visit jackthebikeman.org or call 561-863-1569.
