OUR MISSION
Bikes for Tykes mission is to ensure every child in Collier County has a bicycle.
WHY?
There are several reasons why this is incredibly important:
Empowerment of children
Fight against childhood obesity
Help our environment
1. Empowerment
No one forgets the joy of receiving their first bicycle. A bicycle empowers a child, giving them their first taste of true independence, self-reliance, self-esteem, and helping build the foundation of a healthy lifestyle.
Aerobic exercise [like bicycling] can improve self-esteem.
Millions of children never experience these joys and freedoms – their lives are not favored by fortune or circumstance and a bicycle is luxury their family cannot afford.
2. Fight Childhood Obesity
From Safe Routes to School Research and Statistics
Almost 1 in 5 American 4-year-olds is obese.Anderson, S., and R. Whitaker, 2009
Prevalence of Obesity Among US Preschool Children in Different Racial and Ethnic Groups, Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, 163, 344-348
70% of obese 10- to 13-year-olds become obese adults.Whitaker, R., et al., 1997
“Diet, Physical Activity, and Sedentary Behaviors as Risk Factors for Overweight in Adolescence,” Achives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 2004, 158, 385-390
Children who begin biking or walking to school at an early age (grade 1) are more likely to stay a healthy weight during their early school years.Pabayo, R., et al., 2009
“Sustained Active Transportation is associated with a favorable body mass index trajectory across the early school years: Findings from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development birth cohort,” Preventive Medicine, 50, S59-S64
In the U.S., 30% of boys and 40% of girls are at risk for being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.Outdoor Foundation
“Getting Youth Active: Inactivity among American Youth”
Bicycling can help you live longer!
Bicycling for transportation can reduce mortality by 35 to 40%. Matthews et al., Andersen et al.
A study of 2,400 adults found that those who biked to work were fitter, leaner, less likely to be obese, and had better triglyceride, blood pressure, and insulin levels than those who didn’t bike commute to work. Gordon-Larsen et al.
3. Environmental
Bicycling is healthy for the environment!
Bikes for Tykes is a ‘green’ initiative – refurbishing gently-used pre-loved bicycles to create a renewable resource from the millions of bicycles that are unused, abandoned, or discarded in overburdened landfills.
Landfills
There are hundreds of thousands of bicycles that are sent to the landfill each year, many of them almost new. These will stay in our landfill forever.
Bikes for Tykes takes bicycles that would go into the landfill and refurbishes them, which costs 25% of a new bikes (so we can give more!) and also keeps bicycles out of our landfills.
Invitation to Corporate America
Bikes for Tykes extends an invitation and challenge to Corporate Collier County to allow us access to damaged and returned bicycle products that can be repaired by our volunteer staffs rather than sent to our over-burdened landfills.
Help us bring health, happiness, and success to every child in need one bicycle at a time. Get Involved!