From 9 a.m. to 12 noon on Saturday, Nov. 13 , “Pedal Power” will host a charity collection of gently-used, working bicycles at the former Stemples Cycle Center location (at 494 Spring Road in Elmhurst). In addition to the Elmhurst collection, Pedal Power will also be collecting bikes across 8 more collection sites in the Chicago area.
The new owner of the Elmhurst location that formerly housed Stemple’s has generously offered for Pedal Power to continue to use the location as a collection point. The new owner of the site is Roberto’s Ristorante & Pizzeria.
“Pedal Power” was created in 2008 by Nicole and Bennett Basil of Wilmette and involves the collection and distribution of outgrown, unused, and gently used bikes. The bikes that are donated to Pedal Power are inspected and then given to Chicago Public School students in lower income areas as a reward for earning good grades. For many of these kids, this is their first bike.
Over the past 13 years, bike collection points have been established in Wilmette, Palatine, Northbrook, Glenview, Lake Forest, Evanston, Winnetka, Skokie, and Libertyville.
Friends of the Basil’s, Grant and Lauren Schleiter of Elmhurst, decided that they wanted to extend this charity effort to Elmhurst in 2017. Grant, currently a junior at Fenwick High School and his sister, Lauren, a freshman at University of Michigan approached Stemple’s Cycle Center in Elmhurst about serving as a collection point and the bike center happily agreed.
Stemple’s closed in 2020 and the site was purchased by the owners of Roberto’s Ristorante and Pizzeria across the street. The owners of Roberto’s generously offered to allow the site to continue to be a collection point for Pedal Power. Pedal Power will perform quick safety checks on all of the bikes dropped off and will perform minor repairs, if necessary.
Over the past 13 years, more than 4,800 bikes have been donated to this cause.
With Nicole, Bennett and Lauren now in college, the new Pedal Power team is organized and operated by Grant Schleiter, a junior at Fenwick High School, and the brother sister team of Cailyn and Owen Fitzgerald, both sophomores at New Trier High School.
The CPS schools benefiting from the event include:
• Cesar Chavez Multicultural Academic Center at 4747 S. Mashfield Ave. in Chicago; and
• Northside Learning Center at 3730 W Bryn Mawr Ave. in Chicago. Any bikes needing greater repair and/or parts will be donated here to teach children with cognitive disabilities in its bike repair course. As a result, every bicycle is recycled in some fashion
For more information, go to pedalpower.com.
