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Annual Bike Giveaway Rolls On

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By ELIZABETH LEE BROWN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 22, 2007

CARROLLWOOD - Donations were down this year, but Alex Cooks didn't want to disappoint the hundreds of schoolchildren who would find new bicycles under the Christmas tree.

Cooks, who owns Alex's Southern Style Bar-B-Q in Carrollwood, bought 1,200 bicycles from Wal-Mart, even though his annual Alex's Xmas for Kids bike drive only raised enough cash for 1,000 bicycles.

He is hoping last-minute donations will trickle in before that credit card bill.

"It's just the economy," he said Wednesday as volunteers loaded bicycles onto trucks. "Everything is down. I think everybody is affected."

On Wednesday, representatives from 97 Hillsborough County elementary schools drove into a Clearwater warehouse to pick up the loot.

Larry Merriweather, Cooks' brother-in-law, helped load the bikes onto truck beds, U-hauls and trailers.

"I feel like Santa Claus," he said. "This is real. It's really going someplace."

The bike assembly line began Dec. 12 when workers unloaded the boxes of boys and girls 20-inch bicycles off two trucks.

In the evenings, after spending the day putting together bikes at Wal-Mart, bike builders from Hi-Tech Assembly got to work.

The teams of two - a technician and technician's assistant - worked until midnight over three days.

At each station, assistants unpacked the bike parts and lined them up in rows. Technicians clamped the bicycle on a mobile stand and attached tires and tightened screws with electric impact guns.

"The important thing I tell my guys is, don't leave anything loose. When you're done with it, it's a bike you'd allow your kid to ride," said Scott Lindstam, owner of Hi-Tech Assembly.

Last year, Lindstam's team built 500 bikes overnight at Alex's restaurant. It began to rain after they finished.

This year, organizers sought a larger, indoor bike-building venue. The warehouse allowed guidance counselors, social workers, principals and members of dad's clubs to drive in and load up the bikes.

The 20-inch coaster-brake bikes came in two styles. The boys Cobra model is red with black tires. The girls model, the Blossom, is aquamarine with white tires.

The fundraiser started in 2000 and netted 182 bikes. Last year's effort garnered 1,324 bikes.

Cooks said he started the bike drive seven years ago after he bought 10 bikes and set them around a Christmas tree in the restaurant.

Customers asked him what he was going to do with them, and he said he wanted to give them to underprivileged children. In 17 days, customers pitched in enough money to buy 182 bikes, and the giveaway took off.

Cooks asks principals and guidance counselors at the schools to identify needy schoolchildren, typically between ages 7 and 12.

Andy Alwood, a fifth-grade science teacher at Cleveland Elementary in Seminole Heights, drove up with another teacher to pick up 11 bikes.

Alwood said the bikes will go to deserving kids at Cleveland, a Title I school where 95 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch.

"I think it's great," he said. "We have a lot of needy kids, and a lot of them have never seen a bike. It's a great opportunity for them to get a bike."

School social workers Lynette Judge and Michelle Knox pulled up in a rented U-Haul to pick up 45 bikes for four schools - Wimauma, Summerfield Crossings, Apollo Beach and Doby elementaries.

Judge said she was shocked to learn all Hillsborough elementary schools qualified for the holiday giveaway.

"A lot of our children are very needy, and for some of them this may be the only thing they get for Christmas," she said.

Reporter Elizabeth Lee Brown can be reached at (813) 865-1502 or ebrown@tampatrib.com.

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