Bikes4Marines&Navy are made up of caring people just like you.  We started because of an article that I read, about a man & his friends who saved their change and bought 400 bikes and gave them away to deserving children the previous Christmas.

I thought that was such a good idea that I determined that I would save my change and that coming Thanksgiving on Black Friday buy a bike to give to a deserving child that Christmas.

Come that Thanksgiving I actually had saved enough change to do just that and on Black Friday I bought a boy’s bike & helmet.  All the way home from the store I kept thinking that I really should have just kicked in some more money and bought a girls bike also.

When I got home I mentioned that to my husband and he said, “ Why don’t we ask our bible study and see if they’d like to contribute”.  Our daughter found out what we doing and said that she could get donators also.  And the rest is history.  In four days we had enough money to buy 41 bikes & helmets to give away and a journey had begun.

Somewhere within the time of buying the bikes and actually giving them away we decided to give them to the 9th Communications Battalion at Camp Pendleton as a way of Thanking them for their service.

When we gave the bikes to the Marine Corps 9th Communication Battalion we honestly didn’t expect to ever do it again.  But the word was out and before we knew it we were being approached that following spring to do it again as people continued to pledge contributions or to give donations for the following Christmas telling us that their change jars were filling up with lose change at the end of every day. 

We linked ourselves and became umbrellaed under another non profit so we could continue.   When the time came for him to retire from the service, and taking his non profit in another direction we decided to form our own and applied, and were granted a 501c3 last June 2012.

We have so many stories to share that have happened along the way.  So many generous hearts and people giving to make this project a success year after year.

Places like Hacienda Mobile Home Park, our bible study, generous contributions from the community and friends and neighbors.  People we’ve never met giving because they have heard about us and what we are trying to do and believed in it.

I could not write this story without acknowledging Target of Encinitas and the contributions they have made to make our outreach a success.  Tim Duniphan is a man with a heart as big as he is tall.  His crew, and teammates have gone out of their way to make our outreach to the Marine Corps a total success.  They have volunteered time assembling the bikes and come to the Christmas Party to be a part of it,  working along side the other volunteers to show these families that they really do care about them and their children.