Webelo Scouts Resuscitate Old Bikes For Fresh Start With Toys For Tots

Maybe someday they’ll be engineers. For now, they’ll have to settle for being good Samaritans.

It took almost three months for a group of Webelo Scouts to gather and fix up bicycles for the Toys for Tots program.

Pack 439 took 15 wrecks, tore them down, and salvaged 10 working bikes out of the bunch. In the process, the Scouts worked toward earning citizenship and handyman badges.

“They basically rebuilt them, bearings and all,” said den mother JoNell Edlin.

Their meetings increased in frequency, from one each week to three. Geoff Edlin, Sean Matson, Sean McBride and Brian Johnson, all fifth-graders at Adams Elementary, asked families and friends for old bikes. Parents asked their co-workers.

Once the bikes were gathered, Target and Midway Cyclery donated parts to the cause. The future gifts needed handlebar grips, tubes, pedals, seats, tires and bearings.

Dullanty Fabrication then cleaned them up. The Scouts, finally, were given the task of getting greasy and restoring the two-wheelers.

Seven of the wrecks-turned-rides got new paint jobs, too. Now, Edlin can’t wait for the Marines to make their pick-up stop.

“We ended up with all these bikes,” she said with a laugh. “They’re taking over our garage.”

The Marines come to the rescue Monday, and they’ll bring with them achievement certificates for the Scouts.

, DataTimes