Thirty first and second graders at Redcliffle Elementary School took home an early, one-of-a-kind Christmas present Monday afternoon.
Each child received a new bicycle from Academy Sports and Outdoors in Aiken as part of the store's annual Christmas bike and helmet giveaway. The white, 20-inch bikes featured Academy's logo monogramed on the seats and helmets.
“That's the first year we've done that," said Ken Fehrenbach, store director for Academy Sports and Outdoors. "You 30 kids will be the only ones to own a bike like that. No one else will have one. Isn't that cool?”
Fehrenbach said his company sponsors the bicycle giveaway annually in its markets throughout the country. Locally, he said the store picks an elementary school randomly from different parts of Aiken County each year.
“It's the best way to give back to kids directly in our community,” Fehrenbach said. “It's something we look forward to every year because the bicycle is probably the most popular present for a small child.”
Fehrenbach called the bike giveaway the “best event of the year for us.”
“The kids are so happy,” he said. “It really makes you feel good.”
Principal Julie Revelle said teachers added the names of students who exhibited positive behavior, good effort and strong academic performance to a pool. From that pool, she drew the 30 students who received bikes.
“We looked for students who demonstrated good effort – they worked hard at school – or they might have been really well behaved and followed all of the expectations at Redcliffe,” Revelle said. “Or it might have been that they scored really high on a test and did well on academics.”
READ THE REST OF THE AIKEN STANDARD STORY HERE. (Photo in ACPSD Newsmakers by Larry Wood)