Kids earn bikes through community service

Ashley Merrifield, 10, can’t wait to ride her bike around her neighborhood or to picnics or to the beach and thanks to her service and some help from a few nonprofit organizations on Saturday, she can have the chance.

Ashley and friend Adrianna Tang, 11, had been looking forward to Saturday for quite some time, not because it was the weekend, but because they were at their school, where they were awarded with brand new bikes, helmets and locks by Sheriff Mike Carona.

The girls completed a program put on by Learning for Life, the Mike Carona Foundation and the Orange County Sheriff Reserves with about 60 other Killybrooke Elementary School students in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades. To earn their bikes they completed six hours of community service, learned about the Santa Ana River Trails, goal setting and conservation.

To complete the service, the kids donated canned food, made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the Someone Cares Soup Kitchen, scraped gum off benches at school, picked up trash and planted flowers for each teacher.

And although some of the tasks could be considered gross, the kids seemed happy to do them. “It makes everything beautiful and it’s good to help the community…. It just makes this a better place,” Ashley said. “Now people can come to our school and see what a good place it is.”

Saturday was the last step between the kids and the bikes, but finally the kids were able to get their bikes, as well as a handshake, from Carona and sheriff reserve volunteers.

Giving the bikes was a joy for Carona and the sheriff reserves, including Sgt. Burt Golding, who helped put together all the bikes.

“It isn’t charity, these kids earned the bikes,” Golding said as kids climbed in and out of a Humvee the sheriffs brought along with them Saturday.

Besides seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces as they accepted their bikes, Saturday served as a chance for them to get to see the sheriffs in a positive light.

“It gives law enforcement a chance to do something positive so the kids see us that way,” Carona said.

But the goal in the end is to foster a sense of community enrichment in the kids to show them continued service is the way to better their neighborhoods.

“I want to tell people about it so people could do what I did and help,” Adrianna said. “I liked everything about [the program], it was a good experience.”