Bikes for Angels 2012 Campaign

Automotive Technology Department at Ben Barber Career Tech Academy kicked off their annual Bikes for Angels Fundraiser for Christmas 2012 earlier this fall.
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Update: Fantastic work by the auto tech students at Ben Barber Career Tech Academy for their Bikes for Angels campaign. Over 450 bikes were purchased, built, and are being distributed this week to needy kids in the area. Thank you to everyone who helped in this campaign. Check out the photo gallery from the campus presentation of bikes.

 

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From Rick Curlee, Auto Tech Teacher at Ben Barber Career Tech Academy:
We are dedicating the Bikes for Angels fundraiser to Mr. Jerry Bellows (pictured above) from this point forward. Mr. Bellows is suffering with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) and was very instrumental in starting our Bikes for Angels Program.

Our students have purchased 2,017 bikes and raised over $86,250.00 to buy bicycles for Angel tree children at our Intermediate and Elementary schools here in the Mansfield area. We also donated bikes to Common Ground in Mansfield and Bethlehem Baptist Church. We also have donated bikes to the Family Crisis Center which assists battered women and children and Operation Blessing. It means so much for the instructors and students delivering these bikes to see Counselors, Principals, Teachers and some of the recipients with tears of joy in their eyes.

We are starting this new school year with the main goal of trying to buy at least 700 bicycles this year for needy children who would otherwise not get bikes for Christmas. We have had students bringing everything in from Ziploc bags full of change to a student turning over his weekly paycheck to help some of these children in the past. We have also had many students who had actually been on Angel Trees when they were younger themselves.

We would sincerely like to ask you to help us meet the goal this year by making a donation of any kind to our fund. We can use almost any type of donation.
Some examples are listed below.

• Cars, running or not, and in any shape. Cars must have title and will either be resold or scrapped.
• Scrap metal.
• Checks, cash, even your spare change is accepted. It all adds up to bicycles.

Students will be visiting classrooms, businesses, and their immediate communities trying to raise funds. Thank you for considering this year's Bikes for Angels campaign. If you give by check, please make it out to "MISD Auto Tech" and put Bikes for Angels in the memo line.

For questions about the program, please email Mr. Rick Curlee at Ben Barber Career Tech Academy at rickcurlee@misdmail.org or contact by phone at 817-299-1939.