BY PAUL WOOLVERTON | CityView Senior Reporter
Fayetteville’s long-running “Bicycle Man” bicycle giveaway program for underprivileged kids ended in 2022, but a reincarnated version has risen to take its place.
The new Bicycle Giveaway Program gave bicycles, tricycles, scooters and other ride-on toys to several hundred kids ages 7 and younger on Saturday, said the “Bicycle MaDea,” 69-year-old Bernie Bogertey-Harvey. She is the executive director of the Healthy Child and Adolescent Network, the nonprofit organization that runs the bicycle program.
With the end of this season’s giveaway, the program will begin accepting bicycles and other donations for next year.
Here’s some quick facts about the effort to ensure all children can have bicycles:
- The bicycle giveaway provides bicycles to underprivileged children. In 33 years, more than 60,000 bicycles were given away, WRAL reported.
- Fayetteville resident Moses Mathis, “the Bicycle Man,” founded the giveaway. After his death in 2013, his wife, Ann Mathis, continued it until last year. She told The Fayetteville Observer she had to step aside with her advancing age and declining health.
- Bogerty-Harvey was the Mathises neighbor when she moved to Fayetteville in 1987, and Moses Mathis taught her son how to repair his bicycle. She said she later served on the program’s board of directors and she decided to keep it going after she retired this year as a school social worker.
- Next year, Bogerty-Harvey plans to provide bikes to children ages 15 and younger.
- The program accepts donations of new and used bicycles, bicycle parts, bicycle helmets and money. Volunteers repair the used bikes.
- The bicycles are for families in a hardship situation. The program vets applicants with the county school system, with the Action Pathways nonprofit organization, and by other means.
- To donate a bicycle or offer other assistance, call 910-745-8008 or email bikegiveawaycoordinator@gmail.com. Monetary donations may be made via the Cash App to $THCandANbikes.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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