Middletown >> By noon on Saturday, upwards of 300 bikes lined Middletown’s Minnie Canyon Elementary School parking lot. By 2 p.m., almost every bike was gone, in the hands of a thankful Lake County child.
It was all thanks to the efforts of Livermore resident Candy Alcott and a team of 120 volunteers. They call themselves Bike Angels. It’s a fitting descriptor. In two and a half weeks Alcott managed to wrangle together hundreds of bikes and organize a system to distribute them to children who had lost their homes or were displaced because of the fires.
It all began not long after the Valley Fire broke out. Alcott turned on the news to stare in horror at the smoldering “Welcome to Middletown” sign. As a former Lake County resident and educator (and still a frequent visitor for fishing trips), Alcott has a strong emotional attachment to the area. She knew she had to do something.
When Del Valle High School in Livermore fixed up 18 bikes a few weeks ago and asked Alcott if she wanted them, she jumped. She added 10 more and drove to the Middletown Lion’s Club, where she handed out the 30 bicycles to the children there. “I gave them away and not one child complained that they were used,” Alcott recalled.
She ran out of bikes, but the club hadn’t run out of kids in need. “And then I had to tell 25 kids no, that I could not give them a bike,” Alcott said, her voice swelling with emotion.
She promised an 8-year-old boy named Mizraim Vivreos that she would come back with one for him. And come back she did. He was the first to receive a bike on Saturday.
Alcott said she didn’t choose to do this, but that the Bike Angel project landed in her lap. The countless volunteers and donators are just as responsible as Alcott for Saturday’s success. She said the community worked together to help her keep her promise.
Alcott’s motivation to continue with the donations came from a Cobb resident whose house burnt in the Valley Fire. After the fire roared through his community, Matt Smith started writing Facebook posts to help those affected by the fire. His goal was to keep optimism and spirits up. Alcott saw the posts and drew inspiration from them.
“I fed off of that completely, every day and every night,” she said. “It was passion that kept me going because I didn’t want to listen to any negative person.”
Not long after walking away from the Lion’s Club with the names of 25 children in need of bikes, her list grew to 71, then to 120. It became so vast that in the 48 hours leading up to the second donation, she couldn’t keep track of how many bikes she was giving away.
She found kids first through Facebook posts on the Valley Fire Information page, where she asked Facebook users to send her names of children affected by the fires. Then she turned to Minnie Canyon Elementary, who gave her a list of students who had lost their homes. On her list were a total of 70 families, each of which she personally communicated with via text.
While there are countless stories of homes lot and cars destroyed, she felt there were those who were being overlooked. “Nobody asked the children what they lost,” Alcott said.
Every bike in the elementary school’s parking lot was there through donations and volunteer dedication. A Livermore police officer donated 40 bikes, a woman from Sacramento gave 23 and another man handed Alcott $5,000 cash. She took that money and went to the Clearlake Wal-Mart. When she left, not a single bike remained in the store.
But the bike donations weren’t done yet. On Saturday, the Sonoma Bike Coalition pulled up to Minnie Canyon Elementary with 100 bicycles. Then, the Tamalpais High School Mountain Bike Club showed up with 100 more.
“I did not expect this many bikes,” Alcott said. “I only asked for 25 rideable, used bikes and we got 300 bikes with 150 new ones.”
Alcott also threw out a special thank you to Aaron Beckstead. He drove all over the neighboring counties to pick up bikes, from Ukiah to Windsor to Santa Rosa. Then, he and his team worked until midnight each night to fix any that needed it. “He’s responsible for all 300 bikes being here,” Alcott said.
The bike donations were a group effort, she insisted. “I’m a drop in the bucket, I keep saying, and they use a bunch of drops to fill the bucket and now the bucket is overflowing.”
But others felt she deserved her fair share of the credit. “There are so many silver linings from this tragedy and Candy [Alcott] is one of those silver linings,” said Minnie Canyon Elementary Principal Shelley Tan.
Even Alcott’s inspiration feels she deserves a good deal of credit. “She keeps trying to say it’s all because of me,” Smith said. “I said, ‘I didn’t do this, Candy. You did this.’”
But even more than the hundred volunteers and numerous donations, nothing is more important than the kids. “I started calling everybody Bike Angels because I do not want the focus to be on me. It has to remain on this group of children,” Alcott explained.
Bikes are important for kids not only to regain a sense of normalcy, Alcott said, but to boost their self-esteem, give them a sense of independence and freedom and provide them with transportation.
Although 300 kids received bikes, and helmets, on Saturday, the Bike Angels are far from done. There are still the kids from the high school, two other middle schools and the Hidden Valley and Cobb Mountain areas. Alcott estimates there are 800 total kids in need of bikes. The group will keep collecting names and bicycles until every child has one. “There’s Bike Angels everywhere and now we’re going to form a group and keep trying to help these children,” Alcott said.
Alcott hopes that even after the Bike Angels are done with their work, attention will still be given to the kids. “This is about the moms and the dads knowing that everybody’s not going to desert them and go away,” she said. “I want them to know that people care about their kids.”
Smith voiced his agreement. “It’s great that there’s all this support now, but it really needs to keep going.”
But if things continue as they have been, the Bike Angels will likely achieve their goal of putting a bike beneath every child who lost something in the fires. “It’s a miracle,” Alcott said. “There are different kinds of miracles, but to me this is a miracle.”
Anyone interested in helping with bike donations can contact Candy Alcott through Facebook. They can also purchase a bike at the Clearlake Wal-Mart and inform the staff that the bicycle is for the Bike Angels and Candy Alcott. Wal-Mart will hold the bike until Alcott picks it up.
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
