Variety the Children's Charity of Pittsburgh gives out its 3,000th adaptive bike
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Variety the Children's Charity's Pittsburgh office celebrated a major milestone on Thursday. The My Bike program gave out its 3,000th adaptive bike for kids with special needs.
At the ceremony at Penn Avenue Place in Downtown Pittsburgh, Jude Palladini got bike number 3,000 in the 12 years Variety the Children's Charity has been giving them to families for free.
"It's such a great gift, really a new opportunity, a new discovery for Jude," Jude's dad Rocco Palladini said.
He says the division of what his sons can do has grown as they've gotten older, and Jude's brothers are just as excited as Jude for the new bike.
"It will be a bridge for them to play together, for him to discover new opportunities, to be that kid that everybody wants to be," Palladini says. It will "open up a lot of freedom for him to go with his friends, be a part of that team, be included."
Paisley Gasowski got the 3,001st bike at the ceremony. Her mom, Victoria, says, "It is so exciting to see how happy she is. Everyone will get to be together and get to all be on bikes instead of just a couple (on bikes)."
In addition to the My Bike program, Variety also has the My Stroller program, giving out adaptive strollers to kids with special needs. It's especially helpful for a child who is an eloper, which means he or she often runs away without understanding the danger of cars or getting separated from caregivers.
Variety's My Voice program gives kids who are nonverbal or have difficultly speaking a communication device that talks for them. Kidsburgh covered the story of Tyler Winfield, who got the special iPad and a year later was speaking on his own in part with the help of his device from Variety.
"We just received $1 million from the Pa. Department of Community and Economic Development through a wonderful relationship with Gov. Shapiro, Gov. Corbett that really enabled us and will enable us to continue to serve to help give kids a voice in the commonwealth," said Tom Baker, the CEO of the local chapter of Variety the Children's Charity.
Variety's bikes, strollers and communication devices are all given to families at no cost to them, and a lot more families qualify than many people expect. This chapter covers 59 counties in Pennsylvania. To see if you qualify, go to their website.
For more resources for families including those with special needs, visit kidsburgh.org.
KDKA-TV is proud to partner with kidsburgh.org.
