Hollister Police Department gives away more than 100 bikes

Families began lining up in front of the Hollister Police Department by 7:30 a.m. Saturday to pick up the more than 100 bikes being given away thanks to a grant from TurningWheels for Kids, a nonprofit organization that gives away bikes and helmets, and donations by police officers and others. As the bikes began to roll out to smiling youngsters, Police Chief David Westrick beamed at what had been accomplished for the second year in giving free bikes to hundreds of children.

“This is something we’ve done for two years now and I think it’s important that the people of Hollister know that our agency is compassionate and caring and we really want to do what we can for our community,” Westrick said. “During the holiday season there is a need because of the poverty we have here and there are still some folks who don’t have jobs, and if we can help fill that gap we’ll try to. We’re sworn to protect lives and property, and I don’t know where that falls in there, but I think that because most of us are parents, for us the payoff are the smiles we see when these kids get what is sometimes their first bike.”

All the children who came to the station would leave with a bike because they had all been nominated through their schools, so each bike that waited for them in a separate room already had a tag with their names, ages and contact information. So, it was assured no child would leave without a bike.

“It was done through the school resource officer’s program,” Westrick said. “These are kids who have real needs. My philosophy is every kid deserves to have a bicycle at one point in their life. We have a huge need in our community for our youth and this is just one of those small things we can help out with.”

Westrick said through the TurningWheels for Kids grant the police department received 89 bikes and there were an additional 13 donated locally. He said the tri-county TurningWheels for Kids purchased and built nearly 2,700 bikes in 2015. He said TurningWheels for Kids built the bikes in Santa Clara, then two weeks ago members of the Hollister Police Explorers and officers drove two trailers full back to Hollister.

“This year, because there’s such a huge need and because there’s a lag time in the grant, we didn’t have enough bikes,” he said. “So our own employees, along with Al’s Collision, which donated three bikes, bought about a dozen bikes.”

Pairing a bike with each nominated child can be tricky at times, the police chief said.

“That’s why we were short a few bikes,” he said. “I used last year’s numbers and increased those by 25 percent in each category of bike. I was actually fairly close, but it’s not an exact science and I’m glad we were down only about a dozen or so bikes.”

Westrick said the police officers donated their time for the project because, “They see these kids all the time and they just wanted to do something nice.” 

For more information about TurningWheels for Kids, which is part of the VMC Foundation: http://turningwheelsforkids.org/.