Calgarians donate bikes to refugee kids
Posted Jan 27, 2016 11:34 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It’s a simple pleasure all kids should get to try.
A Calgary author and outdoor enthusiast is blown away, after her efforts to get a refugee child a bicycle this week were met with extreme generosity.
Lori Beattie is part of a sponsorship group that welcomed a family of Syrian refugees Sunday night.
When they were looking around the newly furnished home, they spotted a bike helmet.
“The older son, Mohamed, looked at me, and he can’t speak English, but he mimicked biking, and where’s the bike?” she said. “And then he kept asking me before I left that night at one in the morning: bike bike, and the next day: bike, bike. So I thought, I’ve got to get bikes for these kids.”
Beattie put out a request on Twitter to see if anyone would be willing to donate a few bicycles for the kids and was blown away by the response.
“Now it’s raining bikes — or snowing bikes I’m not sure — but they’re coming from all over,” she said.
Upwards of 100 two wheelers and several cash donations have been received.
Minus a few for Mohamed and his family — they’ll be taken to a warehouse for the Syrian Refugee Support Group in Calgary, but Beattie stresses they want to help out all refugees, no matter what place they come from.
“Having an activity like that is so phenomenal for the kids to sort of get out there and become part of this city,” Beattie said. “Because that’s a big part of Calgary is the pathways and the outdoors.”
