Eighty third-grade students filed into the multipurpose room at Westarea Elementary School on Tuesday morning not knowing that they would leave with a Christmas surprise.
Olde Fayetteville Insurance & Financial Services teamed up with the Bikes for Kids Foundation to give away bicycles to each student, according to a Cumberland County Schools news release.
The foundation was co-founded by Meadowlark Lemon, a 22-year member of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team and a native of Wilmington.
The bikes were hidden from the students when they entered the room, and when they were revealed the students erupted in screeches and yells of excitement, according to the news release.
“I was super-excited and very surprised,” said Cameron Penix, one of the third-graders in the audience. “It was truly amazing. I was about to fall out of my chair.”
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Weeks ago, the third-graders read the book “Think Big. Work Hard. Be Kind. No Excuses” and wrote a short essay about it, the release said. The book was written by the president of Bikes for Kids Foundation, Robert Krumroy. The students were told that the five best essays would win a new bicycle for the writers. On Tuesday, however, the students were told that everyone would get a bike for completing the essay, the release said.
“This is important,” said Paige Ross of Olde Fayetteville Insurance & Financial Services. “This is truly a way we can give back to deserving students who have worked so hard on their essays. They were not given a bike. They earned it.”
The national foundation helps provide bikes and helmets to Title I third-graders as part of a three-year character-building program, according to the release.
Last December, Bikes for Kids donated 50 bikes to third-graders at W.T. Brown and T.C. Berrien elementary schools.
