Christmas bikes an annual labor of love
ANNA MARIA – Each year, Anna Maria resident Carl Augostini restores discarded bikes and donates them to a Sarasota church to give away during the Christmas holiday.
This year, Augostini restored and donated 35 children’s bikes and three adult bikes to the Light of the World Sarasota church. Augostini, a retired electrical engineer, restored an additional 20 adult bikes this year. The first 10 bikes were donated and delivered to a halfway house that assists former jail inmates. Delivered later, the additional 10 bikes were donated to a church that assists the homeless. Former Island resident Dave Huggins assisted Augostini with those deliveries.
Augostini has been at this for at least 13 years and many years ago, Roser Memorial Community Church employee Charles Wade connected him with The Light of the World church.
On Dec. 13, Light of the World church volunteer David Daniels, his son, D.J. Daniels and family friend Elijah Pantophlet arrived at Augostini’s Anna Maria home in two pickup trucks, each towing a trailer to be filled with donated bikes.
David Daniels, the owner of Devine Design Landscaping and Maintenance, said, “We knew we needed two trailers this year because last year we barely stuffed them into one trailer.”
Augostini’s adult children, Craig and Carla, and their spouses, Lisa Augostini and Derek Dobbertin, were also on hand to help load the trailers.
“This is the most I ever had,” Augostini said.
“That’s a lot of bikes,” Craig added.
Two of the childrens’ bikes featured “Barbie” paint schemes and one of the childrens’ bikes featured a “Hot Wheels” paint theme, with a noise-making RPM gauge attached to the handlebars.
When asked why he does this, Augostini said, “I like to see kids have bicycles. It gets them away from their iPhones and iPads and gets them out there getting some exercise and doing things kids should be doing.”
Augostini spends many hours each year restoring the bikes donated to him and this year he had to restore most of them a second time after they were partially submerged in the hurricane-related saltwater storm surge that intruded the ground-level garage of his elevated home.
“Most of them were done and the sprockets all froze up and I had to redo them,” he explained.
“During Hurricane Helene, I lost the garden, the yard and all the plants. There was a lot of water in the garage and I lost a lot of tools and bike parts. They were rusted and the saltwater ate right through them. Milton took a lot of siding off the house and took a lot of soffit out. It took the ceiling above the deck and a few shingles and gutters but Craig is very handy and we put most of it back together.”
Bayside Church in west Bradenton provided Augostini with several bikes to restore.
“They have a program where they donate bikes to homeless people and people coming out of jail but they can’t use the children’s bikes. That’s why I have so many this year. I hope these kids enjoy the bikes and I’m sure they will. I just love to see kids outside riding their bikes,” Augostini said.
His annual efforts come with a cost: “It’s not cheap. The cost of tires and parts has gone out of sight. A tire for an adult bike used to be $5 to $10 and now they’re $15 to $20.”
Before loading the trailers, David Daniels shared a story that illustrates the importance of a bike to a kid. He said a young boy who wanted a donated bike last year didn’t get one. But despite his disappointment, the boy told Daniels that was OK.
“It touched my heart,” Daniels said. “I told his mom I was sorry we didn’t have any more bikes. I asked for their address and the next day I bought a bike and a helmet at Walmart and delivered it to their house and they were so thankful.”
When assessing this year’s donation, Daniels said, “These bikes are gorgeous. You have to have a heart to do this. You have to love kids and understand what a bicycle means to a kid.”
The donated bikes were given away the following day at the Light of the World church’s annual Community Christmas Extravaganza.
“We usually have about 100-150 families come out. We have other gifts from different places but the bike is like the ultimate prize. The joy is when you see the kids get the bike. Just to see the smiles on their face. Some parents can’t afford a bike and a bike is like a gift from heaven,” Daniels said.
