HIGH POINT — Once the curtain parted at Fairview Elementary, showing rows of bikes, the 65 third-graders erupted.
Kendra Flores, Andres Ramirez and Miracle Steed sat in the front row. Kendra’s eyes widened, Andres clutched his chest like he was hyperventilating, and Miracle squished her face between her hands and screamed.
Andres, Kendra and Miracle got a new bike. Every third-grader at Fairview got a new bike. More than 450 third-graders in Guilford County got a new bike.
It was a Huffy, all black with neon yellow handlebars. It came complete with a helmet, and it surprised more than just Andres, Kendra and Miracle.
Third-graders at five other schools got a bike. Many screamed. Some even cried. They couldn’t get over it. They were getting an unexpected gift at the doorstep of Christmas. But this week’s big event was more than just about getting a new bike.
Much more.
‘Mr. Bob’ had an idea
Start with Bob Krumroy. Third-graders this week called him “Mr. Bob.”
For the past 17 years, Krumroy has helped his longtime friend, Bill Pollakov, distribute bikes to second- and third-graders in San Diego. These students attend schools where poverty and joblessness is something felt, seen and dealt with every day.
Pollakov’s nonprofit, Bikes For Kids Foundation, has given away more than 48,000 bikes to children living in low-income neighborhoods nationwide since he began the organization in 1997.
After seeing firsthand how a bike helped children in California believe in themselves and achieve, Krumroy had an idea.
He’s an entrepreneur with more than four decades of sales and marketing experience, and he wanted to do the same thing in Greensboro, his adopted hometown where he has raised three kids, created a company and lived for 37 years.
Krumroy and his family became sponsors, and he convinced newly elected state Sen. Michael Garrett and four businesses — Bell Partners, Diamondback Investment Group, Stearns Financial Group and Z Real Estate Group — to join them.
As for bike recipients, Krumroy approached Guilford County Schools. They said yes.
The program would target local schools that educate children coming from some of the poorest pockets of the county and offer a free and reduced lunch to almost every student, if not every student.
Third-graders at six elementary schools — Fairview and Parkview in High Point; Bessemer, Gillespie Park, Falkener and Cone in Greensboro — would get an early Christmas present.
But they didn’t know that.
All they knew was that they had to read the book, “Each Kindness,” talk about it in class and write an essay about kindness. The third-graders heard that the writers of the three best essays would win a bike.
That’s all they knew. But a handful of volunteers knew more.
Two weeks ago in Greensboro, volunteers gathered in an old-school gym off Summit Avenue and became modern-day elves as they pulled parts from an oblong cardboard box and built a bike.
Lamott Williams came. He’s 41, a truck mechanic, a father and husband to a teacher at Gillespie Park. He didn’t bring his tools. He brought his know-how and childhood memories of putting together his own bike from separate parts outside Ellerbe, N.C.
Auria Chamberlain came, too. She’s 35, a hospital social worker. She brought her sons, Darius, 10; and Jacob, 6. They attend Claxton Elementary. That’s how Chamberlain heard about it, and she recruited Darius and Jacob to help.
“Who are the bikes going to?” one of her sons asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Well,” he responded. “Those will be some happy kids.”
As a single parent who’s had her own struggles, Chamberlain knows how those families will feel.
“I’m in a better position now,” she says. “But as a parent, when you feel like you can’t do enough, it’s hard. With these bikes, they didn’t physically pay for them, but it will give them a feeling inside that ‘At least we can give you something.’”
And what a something. Right at Christmas.
Pulling back the curtain
At the six assemblies this week, there were so many third-graders like Andres, Kendra and Miracle.
They walked into an assembly past a thundering drumline from a nearby high school, through a tunnel of cheerleaders and into an auditorium where a dozen young men and women, all high school athletes, stood.
And there, with microphone in hand, was Krumroy. He called himself “Mr. Bob.”
“Good morning, Mr. Bob!” yelled the third-graders at Fairview Elementary.
Krumroy read a few essays, talked about the future dreams of the high school athletes around him and turned to the crowd of youngsters and asked, “Who really wants a bike?”
Hands shot up. Back-and-forth banter continued. Then, with the timing of a showman, Krumroy asked for stage’s curtain to be pulled back.
Screams. Gasps. And more screams.
Andres gets his first bike. Miracle gets her second bike — her first has a messed-up front wheel and a flat tire. Kendra gets a replacement bike. Her first bike got stolen a few months ago from her backyard.
As for the gift — and the modern-day elves who put the bikes together — that’s all so new to these three third-graders.
Says Miracle: “They’re awesome.”
Says Kendra: “That shows kindness.”
Says Andres: “People are nice. They want the world to be a better place.”
Think big
Krumroy, the East Coast president with the Bikes For Kids Foundation, says the nonprofit plans to give away as many as 1,000 bikes next year to more third-graders in Guilford County. The program also will expand to Alamance County and Wilmington.
The breakdown will be the same: Third-graders will read a character-building book, talk about it in class, write an essay, meet teenage role models and be given the responsibility of owning and taking care of a bike.
For Krumroy, it’s about these eight words: Think big. Work hard. Be kind. No excuses.
And read. Third-graders need to.
A 2011 study from the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that children who can’t read by the third grade are four times less likely to graduate from high school, and high school dropouts are three times more likely to go to prison than high school graduates.
Meanwhile, according to the Bikes 4 Kids Foundation, students who received the bikes in San Diego increased college attendance from 3 percent to more than 12 percent in less than a decade.
So, this week’s surprise is not just about a bike.
Williams, the truck mechanic, knows that.
“With all the bad we see in the world, and they see something like this happening to them, these kids will always remember it,” he says. “It will teach them that’s it’s good to help others when you can and appreciate what you’ve got.”
Williams didn’t attend the assembly at Gillespie Park Elementary, the school where his wife, Marcia, teaches second grade.
But she showed him the video of what unfolded Tuesday afternoon. He loved what he saw.
“That is the reason for Christmas,” Williams says. “It’s the season of giving to me.”
The number of bikes given away was corrected on Dec. 21.
Read the the story and see the pictures at the News & Record