Charity Time!

It's that time of year when we open our wallets or purses and give to those who are less fortunate than us.  Soon we won't have to worry about giving, as the government will properly allocate all of our money to the best recipients, but until then, we need to give.
My beautiful and brilliant wife and copy editor likes to give money for animals.  I find that difficult to understand as animals don't have wallets to put money in, nor can they go to the store and buy food for the lack of communicative skills and opposable thumbs.
 That being said, I'm sure she means well.  I like to help the poor kids.  My favorite is the charity Free Bikes For Kids.  Bikes are a great idea, and give poor kids
something to do other than eating paint chips... mmm paint chips! I used to love those. Free Bikes for Kids collects bikes, fixes them up and delivers them to families that can't afford a bike in time for Christmas.  My first thought when I was made aware of this charity was "How cruel is it to deliver a bike to a kid in Minnesota at Christmas who won't be able to ride it for another 4 months?" Yes, these are just the type of cruel people I like: handing that bike out and seeing the look of total surprise and joy turn to anxiety upon realizing it's still winter.  You know that feeling you get right when you lose all hope? I feed off of that.

Enough about me--let me share with you what my friends at Free Bikes for Kids do for the children.  This year they received over 5,000 bikes from donors, and these bikes need to be cleaned and repaired in order to hand them over to a kid.  Can you imagine if you give a kid a bike with no brakes? First ride ends in a trip to the hospital.  I volunteer to help fix the bikes, and my daughter helps too by cleaning them.  It's very difficult to get a decent number of bikes through the process unless you have enough folks to create an assembly line... hint, hint.  So, if anyone wants to join up as a group and for the next few weeks fix up some bikes for the poor, send me an email or post a comment and we can put together a cleaning and fixing party, complete with pizza and beer.