In 2008, Ron King decided he wanted to start a program to give bicycles to kids who couldn't otherwise afford them.
But he was worried he wouldn't be able to get people to donate used bikes. So he checked the classifieds in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and bought a girl's bike from a preacher's wife in Jacksonville for $30.
In his office at Refurbished Office Panels in North Little Rock, he pulls out a Polaroid photo of that bicycle. On the bottom, he wrote the purchase date -- July 31, 2008.
Word spread about his mission -- Recycle Bikes for Kids -- and by November 2008, people had donated about 400 bikes.
King, who had done missionary work in Colombia, Trinidad and other places, formed the organization because he wanted to do something closer to home. He says he was 10 years old when he got his first bike -- the year he and his three siblings all found used bikes under the Christmas tree.
"It's the most freeing thing you can get," King says of his first bike. "Especially when you could ride anywhere. Benton was a small town at that time. You created your own adventures. We lived right on the Saline River, and we would ride down and go swimming. And we would ride over into town and go to the Tastee-Freez. Gosh, we had a lot of fun on a bicycle."
When he speaks to civic groups, he finds everyone has a story about their first bicycle.
"Everyone remembers how important it was to their development in their life," he says.
Refurbished Office Panels and Recycle Bikes for Kids are located at a large warehouse facility in North Little Rock. Donated bikes fill a huge room where volunteers work on repairs. About 2,000 bicycles are donated each year.
In all, the organization has given away more than 17,000 bicycles and King expects that number to top 18,000 by the end of this year.
"I will tell you, if I ever thought it was going to be this size, I wouldn't have done it. Because I would have said 'I don't have the resources. I don't have the ability. I don't have the time.' But it's one of those things that grew gradually over the course of the first three, four years. Like a lobster, I didn't realize how hot the water was. I didn't know what I was getting into. At the time I started it, I was 58. I'll be 70 years old soon."
News of the bicycles spread by word of mouth and on Facebook.
"All of the bike shops in the metropolitan area act as collection points for us. They have people coming in and saying, 'Hey, I got a bike, what can I do with it?' ... And an article like this, when this comes out, we will have a rush of people bringing us bicycles."
Recycle Bikes for Kids is open to the public on Mondays from 1 to 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. till noon.
Children under the age of 16 can "walk in and ask for a bike" as long as they have permission from a parent, King says. Helmets, donated by Alan Levar in Arkadelphia, also are available.
"What a great guy," King says of Levar. "He buys between 400 and 600 helmets a year because he understands the safety of wearing a helmet."
Levar, a lawyer, found out about the organization when he went to Refurbished Office Panels to inquire about used office cubicles. As an attorney, Levar has represented children with brain injuries. And his own son got a concussion when he jumped out of a golf cart when he was 7.
"I know how bad it can be," Levar says.
He buys the helmets in bulk and has them shipped to Recycle Bikes for Kids.
On Monday afternoons, many homeless people show up after they have lunch at an area soup kitchen to either work on their own bike or to repair donated bikes.
"There are some homeless people who come over here and say 'I want a way to help people.' It's just amazing to me."
Adults who volunteer for three hours can earn a bicycle that needs repairs. After that person repairs the bike, it's his to keep.
Recycle Bikes for Kids started providing bicycles to homeless adults at the request of Our House, a homeless shelter for working adults and their families. Many adults at Our House work at night and do not have a way home at the end of their shifts because most public transportation doesn't run after 8:30 p.m.
Other volunteers include fathers and their children who show up on Saturday mornings to work on bikes that need repair that will later be given to a child or an adult. Six retired men, all cyclists, regularly volunteer to fix bikes.
"They come down here and we have all the tools they need. And they can turn wrenches for a couple hours and do some good and hopefully feel good about it," King says
Of the 2,000 bikes given away each year, about 1,700 will be given to children and 300 to adults. About 700 of the recycled bikes are given to churches and charities in November and December. "That's the big giving season for us -- Christmas -- but we give away bikes year-round."
"You and I can go to Walmart and spend $75 to buy a bike. But to a family with four kids [who all want bikes], that's a month's worth of food and they can't do it. If you take a 10-year-old kid who has been told 'We can't afford a bike' -- and take him into a room where there's more than 200 bikes and say 'Pick out whatever you want in here. This bike is going to be yours.' It's very moving because they can't decide. They want to ride every bike in there."
Donated adult tricycles are given to Arkansas Children's Hospital to be used for exercise by children who are obese or have health conditions that prevent them from using a regular bike.
When someone donates a tandem bicycle, it is given to Arkansas School for the Blind. A sighted person rides upfront with the visually impaired person on the back. King remembers when he took a blind person on a tandem ride.
"I'm riding over a bridge with a nonsighted person behind me. She's aware of what's going on, and she said, 'If we fall are we going to hit the river?' because she had no real concept of being on a bridge or what we were doing. She just knew we were kind of high and the wind was blowing. And I said 'No. This is just a bicycle and we're having fun.'"
For more information about Recycle Bikes for Kids, call (501) 563-8264 or go to facebook.com/recyclebikesforkids. The facility is located at 717 E. 10th St., North Little Rock.
High Profile on 08/18/2019