2026 INVITATION - It's all because of you!

Dear Friends of the Bike Lady,

Bikes are back! I am pleased to announce Bike Lady Season 2026 has arrived!

THIS IS AN EXCITING TIME FOR BIKE LADY. We are reorganizing, refocusing, and building capacity so that we can serve more kids than ever before, and for many years to come. Covid threw us a wrench and put the brakes on things. But we've taken that wrench and retooled. And now we're ready.

BIKE LADY HIGHLIGHTS - All Because of YOU!

• From 2008 to 2026, we served over 13,000 youth in foster care reaching ALL 88 Ohio counties at  least once while partnering with 11 prisons
• We remain an all-volunteer organization
• We are updating the website with new content rolling regularly
• We are expanding our board and seek new members
• We continue to apply for grants to cover operating costs
• We are developing new volunteer opportunities and new partnerships
• We are re-evaluating programming:
  • Surveying counties to ensure we utilize resources wisely to serve youth in the best way AND at the best time possible
  • Restarting our monthly RIDE OUT program with teenage inmates convicted as adults serving time in an adult prison
  • Partnering with numerous Ohio prisons providing community service opportunities for offenders

Our 2026 goal is to serve 500 youth in foster care with their first new bike, delivered before December 24, 2026.

No problem, right?

We're ready and we're starting now. Today. This second. We're starting over as much as relaunching. We know we can do it, but only with YOU!

You’re TEAM BIKE LADY and you SHOW UP!

Your gift matters because foster care is hard. Kids in care don't do anything wrong to enter the system. They are in foster care because someone has extensively hurt, neglected, or rejected them. Bikes hold promise. You fundamentally alter the trajectory of Ohio foster youth when you give to Bike Lady. When asked what their new bikes mean to them, the kids always say, "It means someone cares what happens to me. Someone loves me. It means hope.” 

Simultaneously, our prison assembly program gives purposeful opportunity for inmates trying to make amends and achieve atonement. Our Prison Peloton participates find that who they were does not need define who they are becoming, and where they are does not need define where they are going. Volunteering with Bike Lady stirs empathy and compassion in the hearts of offenders, and helps offenders offer some measure of restorative justice, even if small.

Between the recipient and the assembler, every bike you give changes at least two lives, giving a measure of freedom and well-being to both.

Please roll with us to achieve 500 bikes for 500 kids in 2026. Can you give some Bike Love today? I hope your answer is, “YES! YES! YES!” It's a bike. So simple, yet so powerful. Bike Love starts with you. 

Our relationship with Huffy Bicycles continues. We receive new bikes at wholesale cost. We are working on low cost helmet and lock solutions. We anticipate a budget of $150 per youth served to provide each with a new bike, helmet, and lock. It will take over $75,000 to serve 500 youth with a new bike, but with your help we can do it. 

Please consider putting a kid or two on a bike. Give them that freedom, that right of passage, that needed transportation, a huge dose of HOPE, and the lifelong special memory of their very first new bike. Donate today at https://bikelady.org/donate-3. 

Let's go Team Bike Lady. Let's ROLL! 

Love, Kate
 

Kate Koch | Founder
PO Box 311 Blacklick, OH 43004  |  T: 614.946.6463
Email: staff@bikelady.org   |  Web: www.bikelady.org