AUSTIN, Texas —
Students at an Austin elementary school will get to go home with a brand new bike on Thursday!
Thanks to Can'd Aid, 100 first- and second-grade students at Josephine Houston Elementary School received free bikes through the nonprofit's "Treads and Trails" program at 9:40 a.m. on Thursday, May 11. The goal of the program is to put bikes into the hands of school-aged children around the country and to foster "healthy and active lifestyles and a love of the outdoors," according to the organization's website.
The program has also helped fund and create an adaptive park for those in need of an ADA-accessible park and provided outdoor clinics to help teach kids how to use their bikes and "help them find their inner athlete."
Can'd Aid provides bikes that are built by hand by volunteers. The bike building event for the school's students was held on Wednesday, and 60 volunteers showed up to help get the job done.
The nonprofit provides a myriad of services to residents and communities in need all across the 50 states in the U.S. In addition to their "Treads and Trails" program, Can'd Aid offers "Music and Arts" and "Water and Response" programs.
The "Music and Arts" program donates brand-new instruments for each school's needs, provides music workshops, support artists as they grow into their careers, cultivate live visual arts and provide "art kits" filled with everything children in foster care or experiencing homelessness will need to help have a creative outlet.
The "Water and Response" program helps provide those access water when they need it most. The motto for the program is "responding quickly and passionately to help those recover and rebuild in the wake of disasters."
The program has done just that by providing 3,157,504 cans of drinking water to families in need. The nonprofit has helped supply canned water to those in the Navajo Nation in Arizona following the COVID-19 pandemic, continued supplying water to those experiencing the Flint, Michigan water crisis and to those during the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, flooding in 2016.
If you would like to learn more about how to participate in Can'd Aid's programs or how to donate, you can visit the nonprofit's website.