Bicycle Program Overview

Helping Children - One Bike at a Time

All of Elves & More's efforts are focused on changing lives - one bike at a time. Although we intend to expand into new areas in the future, our principal activity this year will be the 2011 Bicycle Program. Everything else we will do is designed to fund or implement that program. We believe to contribute or participate you will want to know what that program is all about.

Here's a glimpse into the Elves & More 2011 Bicycle Program:


A Christmas unlike any you've ever seen: EXCITING!

Visualize 10,000 brand-new bicycles loaded into more than 100 large trucks and delivered to 10,000 underprivileged children, with Santa at the front.

See and hear the 8-year old boy crying:
      "I got a bike! I got a BIKE! I GOT a B-I-K-E!!!"

Watch the 6-year old girl, wrapped in a pink feather boa, with matching dress-up shoes, smiling like cat that's eaten the canary and saying "Thank You!"

Listen to the grandmother who stopped the gathering crowd to say:
      "Do you children know what's going on here?
       Do you know who these people are?
       Do you know that they have brought all these bikes to you out of the kindness of their hearts?        Show them some appreciation for what they're doing for you; let them know you care."
       Then she hugs one of the Elves & More Elves, and others in the crowd stopped what they were
       doing and hugged the other Elves too.


A participation experience like no other: MASSIVE & PERSONAL:

It doesn't stop there. Consider these experiences of our Elves & More Elves:

Sarah, a 6-year old, told her father
       "For Christmas I want you to help build those bikes for Elves & More and then give them
       to needy children. That's all I want. I already have enough toys. I want to do something
       for someone else who doesn't have any."
       For four nights father and daughter diligently built bikes; then, on Christmas Eve, they
       both delivered them to kids, a memory neither will ever forget.

Day after Day, Kirby worked tirelessly, assembling and repairing bicycles, often far into the night. Once he was the last to leave (1:30 a.m.); next morning he was the first to arrive (6:30 a.m.). In the hours between he delivered the remaining wrapped sandwiches to homeless people under the bridges.

Building a bike represents a gift of love to someone less fortunate. Delivering that gift to these children in the neighborhoods where they live is a life-changing experience; for few of us know how much poverty there is among us, or what being truly poor, is really like. Anyone who goes into these neighborhoods comes away changed forever, and some become committed to doing more to make things better. The gift goes both ways.

Elves & More Elves will number more than 5,000 from every walk of life: Companies will bring their executives and employees, will bring their children (half of our Elves are children). Troop leaders will bring their scouts. Biking clubs will recruit their members; churches they congregations; youth organizations their tees. Parents and children from poverty-stricken areas will come help others like them. And scores of people will simply walk in off the street, after hearing about the program on television or radio or via the Internet. You can join them; better yet, bring your family.


A gift much bigger than it seems: PLANTING SEEDS OF HOPE!

Underprivileged children prefer bicycles over every other gift. Although bikes may seem to be just toys, for these children they are even more important than that, they are essential transportation, for bicycles give children the freedom and flexibility to go places: to participate in positive after-school activities, to go to the library and get on the Internet, or (for teens) to take a part-time job and help make a better life for their families.

Bikes form essential transportation for children who are otherwise living their lives on foot in areas which are riddled with drugs and crime. With a bike a child can escape, even if for a little while, and dream new dreams, then take the first steps to go after them.

With a bike, that child can also join programs where Mentors will form the "training wheels" of their lives, guiding them in the right direction, hopefully all the way out of poverty!


A plan that reaches farther than every other: 100,000 CHILDREN!

Through 2009, on a cumulative basis, Elves & More will have given bicycles to more than 100,000 children in Greater Houston. We are more than one quarter of the way toward reaching the 330,000 underprivileged children in the Houston Metropolitan Area! Our goal is to reach every one of them at least once in their childhood.

Without help, most of the children receive little or nothing at all for Christmas, year after year. With a sustained program of our scale, if only once in his / her childhood, we have the chance to say to each child: "Someone does care; WE DO!"

It's a daunting task, to be sure, for this is, perhaps, the largest undertaking of its kind. Ever. Anywhere. Yet, we started Elves & More in 2003 (formed as a charity in 2004) and since then have given brand new bicycles to 100,000 children.

Much money needs to be raised from the community, from people like you who want to make a difference. We'll need every cent you can provide to make this happen. Register to participate in the Bicycle Program.

Come and help us in 2011. Help show others the true meaning of community. It will change your life.


Where We'll Deliver the Bikes

In general, our deliveries will occur within an area bounded by Conroe in the North, to Galveston in the South, to Pasadena in the east and Katy in the west, in Harris County, Montgomery County, Fort Bend County, Galveston County, Liberty County, Waller County, and Chambers County. In this area, out of the 5 million inhabitants, 330,000 children are living below the Poverty Line.

We must keep the locations of the specific neighborhoods we will visit a closely guarded secret until the day we arrive. We do that in order to avoid having far more kids "waiting" than we can serve. If secrecy is not maintained, the telephones would start ringing and kids would appear from other neighborhoods in such large numbers they could not be served.

Thank you for your support of the kids!

David L. Moore
Founder and President


© 2004 - 2012 Elves & More