Nearly two decades ago, Chuck Graeb of Old Lyme switched gears and started fixing up bikes in his backyard for disadvantaged kids. Now, 10,000 bikes later, he’s still at full speed but with a small army of elves ranging from high-schoolers to retirees.
“We get used bicycles from people and we recondition them—new tires, tubes, seats,” explains Graeb.
While bikes are given to kids all over the Nutmeg State, the biggest area is the triangle between New Haven, New London, and Middletown. The repair group, Bikes for Kids, works through agencies.
“In any town we work through Youth and Family Services. They tell us we need ‘x’ number of bikes for boys and ‘y’ for girls,” said Graeb. He sees the recipients for the first time when the bikes are given to them.
Bikes go to needy children including those in orphanages. Bikes for Kids also spends a great deal of time fixing bikes for special needs and terminally ill children.
“It’s like a tricycle and extremely expensive,” Graeb explains. But these bikes can only be given to kids “when there is a benefactor who can afford to give us one of those.” The particular bikes, which are custom-made and cost roughly $2,000, go to children’s hospitals such as Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital and the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford. Special needs bikes also go to schools on the shoreline.
“These bikes last forever, and it’s really useful to kids in the schools,” he said.
Bikes for Kids is also involved in “all sorts of little things.” Says Graeb, “They’re little, but not so far as the kids are concerned.”
The “little things” include trikeathons for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, and contests “where kids write a letter about what good deeds they’ve done and why they deserve to get a bike.”
“We do a lot of things that nobody knows about.”
Graeb, who started Bikes for Kids when he was 62, grew up as “a very poor kid” in New York City. “I never had a bike as a kid and I always felt bad around Christmastime when all the other kids had bikes and I didn’t. It’s a rotten feeling.”
He wanted to help as many as he could, and so started fixing bikes.
“My goal was to fix two, three, or four bikes a year. After the first two years it was horrible—nobody was interested in helping me,” he said.
But the third year he received a request for 75 bikes. Then local youth and family services agencies heard about him. In Bikes for Kids’ heyday volunteers refurbished 700 bikes a year.
Graeb says he’s got the best job in the world because, “When you see these kids they have absolutely nothing. They have a horrible existence. It’s dangerous—crime, drugs. The bigger kids beat up the littler kids. When you see them grab the bikes for the first time, they’re screaming and yelling. It’s probably one of the first things in their life they’ve ever owned. Just to see their faces is priceless.”
At first it was a one-man show, but now there are about a dozen men helping all along the shoreline. And, Bikes for Kids also works with area high schools.
“The Westbrook High School is one of the biggest that helps me. We dump the bikes off, maybe 50, and the kids fix them up. We pay for the parts and the school gives the kids community credit. When the kids get ready for college, I write a letter saying what a great job they did and what a great candidate they’d make.”
Graeb doesn’t need bikes—he gets “millions.” What he does need is funds. One way of obtaining funds is to take the bikes that require too much effort to fix and “cannibalize them.” That is, he keeps some of the parts and takes other parts to the dump, which gives him money for the scrap metal.
“My wife gave me a big pickle jar and we stuff whatever money we get in the jar.”
Recently, he took the jar with $176 in it to Youth and Family Services in Deep River. The money will be used for Thanksgiving dinners.
“With that you should buy quite a few dinners. And it’s out of the junk…we’re getting money in return for recycling and providing dinners for needy families,” he said.
Bikes for Kids is always looking for people who know how to fix bikes. And, they’re always looking for storage space along the shoreline.
“After the bikes have been fixed we need to store them,” Graeb said. “We need anybody with a barn, an empty garage, or empty shed.”
By Susan Cornell
Special to the Times
Financial donations are also welcome. Checks can be sent to Bikes for Kids, c/o Wachovia Bank, 665-22 Boston Post Rd., Old Saybrook 06475. Those interested in fixing bikes or providing storage space should call Chuck Graeb at 860-434-3684.