Tampa Kids Get Ultimate Christmas Gift: A Shiny New Bicycle

TAMPA, FL — For the fourth year in a row, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor and community partners made surprise deliveries of new bikes to deserving kids throughout the city of Tampa, in collaboration with onbikes, TECO and Tampa General Hospital.

Caroling and bike deliveries were done from the onbikes 50-foot Gasparilla parade float. The float was followed by a series of Chadwell Supply trucks filled with bicycles children.

Castor personally hands out the bikes to kids each year at different Tampa Parks and Recreation centers.

“This is what I like to call the best day ever,” Castor said. “Seeing the looks on their faces when we pull up in the float is just incredible. Every kid deserves a bike and it is so heartwarming seeing some of these kids get their first bike ever.”

Providing bikes to kids leads to new opportunities for health, wellness and fun, she said. A bike can create a new way for a child to explore his or her community or provide transportation for teens who need to get to school or work.

“We are so excited to partner with the city of Tampa, keeping this great event going for the fourth year," said onbikes Executive Director Anne Gold. “Something so small as a bike can make a very real difference. A bike is more than just a bike. A bike means possibility because, on bikes, kids go places.”

The Bike Give-Away took place this year at Williams Park, Grant Park and DeSoto Park.