Moses Mathis likely didn’t expect to become Santa’s helper when a needy child approached him decades ago for help repairing a “raggedy” bike.
But by 1990, he had become known as “The Bicycle Man,” as he collected bikes to repair and give away out of his garage, WRAL-TV reported.
From those small beginnings grew a North Carolina charity that now donates thousands of bikes annually, giving the gift of fun, transportation, and freedom to kids who otherwise might not receive anything for Christmas.
Generosity was a character quality Mathis learned as a poor young boy, the son of sharecroppers in the 1940s. His brother bought him a shiny new red bicycle with the money he earned working at a local pickle plant, according to a 2013 obituary in The Fayetteville Observer.
“At his father’s direction, he shared with all the kids who lived near him,” the outlet said in reference to the bike.
Memories of those days came flooding back many years later when a young neighbor boy asked him to help repair a “raggedy” old bicycle.
Mathis knew “the difference a bike could make in the life of a child,” The Fayetteville Observer said. “So he helped the boy.”
More than two decades later, he was giving away hundreds of bikes each year.
“Mr. Mathis, who’d been deeply involved in efforts to rid the area of drug dealers, enlisted local teenagers in the repairs, paying them and keeping them busy,” The Fayetteville Observer said.
“As people heard about the bicycle giveaways, they gave Mr. Mathis bicycles old and new. His yard teemed with them.”
Word of his heartwarming work spread. One year, when 75 of the bicycles were stolen just before Christmas, the story made national news, and donors across the country pitched in to help with the effort.
“That year, more than 2,000 poor children received bicycles,” the outlet reported.
One man remarked after Mathis’s death, “There are people that are 30 or 35 years old all the way down to 5 or 6 who received bicycles from Moses and perhaps as a result had a less cynical, more positive outlook on life, saw that life really wasn’t as bad as they may have thought… It just had a tremendous, tremendous impact, I believe.”
The charity outlived Mathis. After his death, his wife, Ann, took over the program, becoming “The Bicycle Lady” for another 10 years, WRAL-TV reported.
Now, the program is run by Bernie Bogertey-Harvey, a member of the Bicycle Man Foundation Board of Directors, whose son was one of the first children to receive a bike from Mathis.
“It was Moses’ vision if a child didn’t get anything for Christmas, at least they got a bicycle,” Bogertey-Harvey told WNCN-TV.
This year, they gave out bicycles to roughly 2,500 children.
“For me to be able to continue [Moses Mathis’] legacy is an honor,” Bogertey-Harvey said.
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