Taking the Build to the Next Level

Those original six bikes were donated to the Boys and Girls Club at the Douglass Center in Plano. Since there were many more deserving kids than bicycles, the bicycles were given away by a lottery system based on the size of the kids and the bikes available. There was much anticipation when the bikes were rolled in all decorated for Christmas with joyful excitement expressed by the winners. However, there was also much disappointment from those who were not so lucky. This prompted Terry to say, “we can do much better than this!” And the next year 12 unassembled bikes were bought, built, and donated. In the third year, the donation was increased to 27 bicycles.

Logistics Challenges

As the number of annually donated bikes continued to grow, logistics became a big challenge since bikes could no longer be built in a garage, stored until needed, and then transferred easily to the Douglass Center. PBA members Rick and Lori Maucieri generously offered the use of their landscaping business warehouse to both assemble and store the increasing number of bikes. Of course, the difficulty of transporting the bikes remained and needed to be carefully managed. Eventually even the warehouse space was outgrown. At that point it was decided to make the Children’s Advocacy Center of Collin County the recipient of PBA’s donations. Unassembled bikes were bought and delivered directly to the Advocacy Center since there was adequate space there to both build and store the bikes. This worked well with the only “downside” being that PBA members were unable to see the joy on the faces of the recipients due to privacy considerations.

We Can Build It!

This originally named “PBA Bike Give-Away” has now become the club’s traditional PBA Bike Build which brings holiday joy both to underprivileged kids and to participating PBA members. And, due to the large number of bicycles that PBA builds each year, the one-day event has become two nights of bike builds. This year alone in December of 2023, fifteen years after the first six bicycles were donated, 110 bikes were built and stored at the Advocacy Center to be distributed by Center employees to innocent and deserving children. Since 2008, the PBA has purchased, assembled, and delivered over 1,000 bicycles to grateful children of all ages. Do you think we can double the number of donated bikes in 2024?

Fast Forward to Present

PBA works with wonderful organizations such as the Children's Advocacy Center in their Toy and Christmas giveaway event with over 1,200 caregivers signed up to pick out toys for children under their care.

We now consistently donates over 100 bikes per year. We also inspect bikes from other organizations. In 2023 we built 110 bikes and we conducted quality control of an additional 150+ bikes!