Free Bikes 4 Kidz, a local non-profit organization that provides bikes to needy kids and adults in the Twin Cities (and pro bono client of Snow Communications), is preparing for its fourth-annual bicycle giveaway season! Thanks in part to a bike donation drive led by sponsor Allina Hospitals and Clinics, the group recently received 5,000 bikes in less than two weeks, its largest total ever.

This incredible generosity has created the need for volunteers to help prepare these bikes to give away, an event which will happen on December 10 at 21 locations around the metro area.  No technical skills are necessary to volunteer, so if you want to be part of a great organization that brings joy to local Twin Cities families this holiday season, please visit www.fb4k.com and click on ‘Volunteer!’

Here’s a fun anecdote to this story: Art Engstrom, the retired owner and founder of one of the first and largest Schwinn dealerships in America, has donated his warehouse space to Free Bikes 4 Kidz to use for repairing bikes this year. This is the same location where his bike shop was functioning 30 years ago. Last Saturday Art came to the site to volunteer to work on bikes, only to find that there were several bikes in the pile that had stickers proving they were purchased at his store, that very location, 30 years earlier. So Art was now repairing a bike that he sold 30 years prior, and preparing that bike to have a second life – given away to a child in need – from the same premises. What goes around, comes around!