By Brian Boyce
TERRE HAUTE — The bright colors of brand-new bicycles speckled the gray parking lot like Christmas decorations Saturday morning.
Inside Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology’s Facilities Operations Center, about 250 volunteers buzzed about a makeshift assembly line of tables and boxes, putting together 450 bicycles on behalf of the school’s 10th annual Bikes for Tykes drive with the Exchange Club.
Longtime Rose-Hulman staffer Dale Long noted the project was under way by 8:15 a.m. that morning. “And we’ll be done by 10:45, I’d say.”
Newly-assembled bicycles were rolled off of tables by teams of students and faculty before heading outside for inspection. Families and community organizations arrived between noon and 3 p.m. to pick up the bicycles for children selected by area social service agencies, Long said, adding that the bicycles were provided by Pacific Bicycle Co. in Illinois and transported by Morris Trucking. Each bicycle came with a safety helmet.
“It’s become a very big Christmas program,” Long said of the decade-old tradition which he estimates has provided more than 3,500 bicycles to Wabash Valley children.
Meanwhile, Sami DeVries, a graduate student in biomedical engineering, watched a pink “Hello Kitty” bicycle roll by with just a little envy. “It’s a great cause and it’s a lot of fun to put bikes together. Everyone gets into it,” she said.
DeVries, a Delta Delta Delta sorority alumnus, was a Rose-Hulman undergraduate when she met her husband, Matt, also an alumnus and now a fellow graduate student. “We just got married in June,” she said, adding that this is the fifth Christmas the couple has helped with the Bikes for Tykes program.
Rose-Hulman President Matt Branam stopped by to offer a hand on the assembly line, remarking at the industriousness of the student body. “We have a very service-oriented student body, a very active student body. A great bunch of kids,” he said, adding that assembly-line production and team-based projects are tailor-made for future engineers.
Professors Julia Williams, Christine Buckley and Caroline Carvill formed their own assembly team, tools in hand, to help. “We’ve been doing this for several years and we have a system,” Carvill, an American literature professor, said.
For Corrie Campbell, a senior civil engineering major, the whole morning was a lot of fun. “It’s my first year doing it,” she said, munching on a ketchup-drenched hot dog. “I was glad I could come out and help.”
Long noted that the school hosts fundraisers to pay for the bicycles. “We’re close to our goal,” he said of the $23,000 spent. Donations are accepted at any First Financial Bank branch in care of Rose-Hulman’s Bikes for Tykes program.
Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.
