This Woman Has Spent 14 Years Giving Free Bikes to Children in Need

May 21, 2026

A woman in New Brunswick is helping hundreds of children experience one of the best parts of summer: the freedom of riding a bike with friends around the neighborhood.

Credit: Krista Richard

For the past 14 years, Krista Richard has been collecting donated bicycles, repairing them, and giving them away for free through her program, Bikes and Trikes for Everyone, in Moncton, Canada. What started as a simple act of kindness has now helped thousands of kids get back outside, make friends, and create lasting memories.

This year alone, Richard says she set a new personal record by giving away 88 bikes in a single day. Last year, more than 400 bikes found new homes.

Richard believes bikes do much more than provide entertainment. She says they help bring neighborhoods back together.

“With all these video games, there’s no social contact and people don’t know who their neighbors are anymore,” Richard told the CBC.

“But if you get a bunch of kids on their bike, then they get to know each other and then the families get to know each other. I think the more time you spend outside the better.”

And the demand continues to grow. More than 400 children are currently on the waiting list.

For Richard, the effort is all worth it when she sees the reaction on a child’s face.

“I had one little boy… he got on it and he didn’t want to go home,” she recalled. “Every time he’d go by me, he would say, ‘You do good job, you do good job.’”