During the past year, the Statesboro Police Department and Statesboro Public Works employees collected more than 50 bicycles that were either going to be thrown away or were never claimed by their owners.
Rather than toss them, employees at Public Works combined parts of the bicycles that weren't in good condition to make ones that worked and donated them to Joseph's Home for Boys. They also distributed them to needed families though the Department of Family and Children's Services.
"We've done this for the past few years where we'd collected a few of them and we had city employees who would need them to give to their kids for Christmas," said Bobby Colson, public works director for Statesboro. "This year, we had so many of them and, fortunately, none of our city employees needed any, so we sat down and tried to figure out who to give them to."
Of those 50, they were able to piece together 22 bicycles, with approximately half going to Joseph's Home for Boys.
"To the best of my knowledge, it didn't cost us a dime to put the bikes together," Colson said. "We'll take one tire off one bike, another tire off a different bike and combine them with a third one to get a good one."
Colson said the bikes come from several different places, including being put out for trash pick up or being recovered by the police department and then not being claimed by its owner.
"They may be perfectly good bikes, but someone may have just outgrown it and they left it at the road with their trash. We'll take it and store it until we're ready to do something with it."
Colson said they'd start collecting bikes again in January for next year.
Rather than toss them, employees at Public Works combined parts of the bicycles that weren't in good condition to make ones that worked and donated them to Joseph's Home for Boys. They also distributed them to needed families though the Department of Family and Children's Services.
"We've done this for the past few years where we'd collected a few of them and we had city employees who would need them to give to their kids for Christmas," said Bobby Colson, public works director for Statesboro. "This year, we had so many of them and, fortunately, none of our city employees needed any, so we sat down and tried to figure out who to give them to."
Of those 50, they were able to piece together 22 bicycles, with approximately half going to Joseph's Home for Boys.
"To the best of my knowledge, it didn't cost us a dime to put the bikes together," Colson said. "We'll take one tire off one bike, another tire off a different bike and combine them with a third one to get a good one."
Colson said the bikes come from several different places, including being put out for trash pick up or being recovered by the police department and then not being claimed by its owner.
"They may be perfectly good bikes, but someone may have just outgrown it and they left it at the road with their trash. We'll take it and store it until we're ready to do something with it."
Colson said they'd start collecting bikes again in January for next year.