Lil Hoots Consignment Boutique and Jake with Joker Bike Repair in Carseland are teaming up to give the community refurnished bikes for free this spring.
Owner of Lil Hoots Consignment Boutique Denise Geremia explained that this is their fourth year doing the free refurbished bike program and it was initially started by Drivers Collision 2014.
"Dustin and Sarah (from Drivers Collision 2014) had this idea where they wanted to fix up some bikes and give them away to people, and they have been the ones doing it every year and this year they messaged me, and they just weren't able to take it on and so I had cancelled the program."
But as luck would have it, they were getting donations anyway because people were waiting for the program to start up again.
"That's when I had decided to approach Joker Bicycle Co. I was like, 'listen this is totally not how we normally do things, but if you want to put your name out there for free advertising... it's basically going to cost you lots of money because you're going to have to fix all these bikes. Here's the process, this is how it's been done in the past, would you be willing to help out?'"
Jake then took a couple of hours to think about what he wanted to do and then called back Geremia and said "yeah, I can't say no to this." Jake than shared it everywhere and told the community that he would pick up the bikes. "While normally we get 30 bike donations every year. This year, I think we got 30 in like a minute and we have more bike donations than ever before."
Geremia said they are not accepting bike donations at the moment because his garage is absolutely full of bikes that he is needing to fix up. "He's fixing up the bikes and then he will be bringing them back here to my store and we will leave them outside and people can just come and pick up a bike."
Lil Hoots Consignment Boutique and Bike Repair Co. are also accepting donations. "If you really want to donate funds, we really need this. There's a lot of bikes and this is all coming out of Jake's pocket."
Geremia mentioned that a local resident Chadlee McDowell messaged them and offered to help out as well. "He has a bunch of bikes and is willing to put in the work."
This year the bike program has taken a life of its own. "For the first time ever, jumping up to help us and offering like this is a great way to give back to the community. People want to volunteer their time. People want to volunteer their expertise and get these bikes out there, it could be for kids, adults, we're getting all sizes of bikes, and anybody can come and pick one up and take one for free."
Last year the program won the Northern Lights award. They were recognized for repairing and restoring donated bicycles and distributing them to those in need.
As of when the program this year is ending, that's entirely up to Jake.
"So in the past with Dustin (Drivers Collision 2014), he limited it because he was doing this all for free and he also owns his own business. Every year we normally would give out about 50 bikes, so they would bring 10 every week and then they would be gone within a couple of days and then the next Monday they would bring 10 more. As for Jake, considering he's been given so many donations, I'm hoping that we go through, but it's going to depend on also costs, like if he's going to be putting thousands of dollars into this fixing up bikes, he's going to be like."
No piece of this program is going to the landfill, all the pieces of the bike are being used on other bikes. For example, some bikes may be completely destroyed but even in that scenario there may be a good tire or other salvageable parts.
Geremia leaves off with saying how proud she is to be doing this for the community. "If you need to learn and be reminded that there is actually good people in this world doing a donation project like this and you get reminded. Especially with how good Jake is, he's phenomenal."
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Fri, Apr 26, 4:30 PM
