Bike enthusiast Brendon Mathews believes there should be no barriers to children learning how to ride a bike.
That’s why his business, The Bike Station, has decided to donate good quality bikes to every kindergarten in Nelson.
It’s a busy Thursday afternoon at Victory Square Kindergarten and there is a long queue of excited children waiting for a turn on the four bikes that Brendon has just brought in.
He explains that the bikes are not brand-new, but those that have been traded in as part of their popular ‘Kids Bike Trade-in Programme’.
“The programme works by us buying back any used bike under 20” wheel size sold by us for 100 per cent of the initial purchase price against the next size bike,” he says.
“It allows parents to buy the correct bike to begin with, and bring it straight back when they’ve out grown the bike and get the next size up. It’s a win for the parents pocket and a win for the kids.”
He says the idea to donate all the traded-in bikes to kindergartens come about when Victory Square Kindergarten visited The Bike Station seeking “decent” bike helmets.
“We helped them out with some helmets at a heavily discounted price, but I wasn’t sure what we were going to do with these used bikes. Then someone suggested giving them to local kindergartens,” he says.
“We wanted to start with Victory, as it’s our local kindergarten, but we’ll continue to roll it out across Nelson. We really like that we are giving back to the community.”
Head Teacher Donna Bishop says they are always working on bike safety and having some good quality bikes and helmets will make a huge difference.
“For us it is about generosity and recognising that not all families are able to provide or even access bikes. It means we can extend on children’s physical skills and generally have lots of fun,” she says.
“It’s also about community and how a local business has seen a need and wants to help not only our community, but others as well.”
