Hilton Head parishioners gift 50 bikes from Santa to children before Christmas Day
Santa Claus made an early delivery for 50 children on Hilton Head Island, said Knights of Columbus member and Holy Family parishioner Frank Sheridan.
“They were pretty fired up,” Sheridan said.
“Ironically, whether they were a little 4-year-old who was getting a big wheel, or a 12-year-old, they all had the same level of ‘This is good!’” he said.
Volunteers with the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic service organization, and parishioners from Holy Family, a church on Hilton Head Island, loaded the bikes onto pickup trucks around 7 a.m. on Dec. 19, Sheridan said.
This is the second annual delivery for children ages 4 through 12 and was a big step up from last year’s delivery of about 20 bikes, he said. Sheridan credits this year’s success to getting “more aggressive” with getting the word out about what they were doing.
“I was pleasantly overwhelmed by the support we got,” Sheridan said. “It’s no great mystery: just get kids bikes for Christmas.”
People were willing to donate gently used bikes, Sheridan said, but the organization did not accept them.
“We felt it was important every kid get a bike for Christmas, so the rule was it’s got to be a new bike,” he said. “We received tremendous support from the entire community.”
The “outpouring of generosity,” Sheridan said, was incredible to experience.
The only downside, he joked, was having his garage overrun with bicycles and struggling to put the training wheels on for the smaller children.
“That took more work than a regular two-wheel bicycle,” he said, quickly adding, “Seeing a little kid hopping on that big wheel and just start trucking around was well worth it.”
This story was originally published December 24, 2021 at 3:34 PM.
