ABATE delivered two trailers of toys and 43 bicycles to Combined Community Services’ Toy Time Monday evening.
The 43 bicycles - each with a matching helmet - broke the previous record held by American Bikers Aimed Toward Education (ABATE) of 40.
“They have been helping us for the last 30 years, and I have been doing this 31 years, so they have been doing this forever,” said Toy Time coordinator Ami Pitt.
The new toy giveaway - which is Tuesday from 9 to 7 p.m. and Wednesday from 9 to 3 p.m. at the Home & Family Arts Building at the Kosciusko County Fairgrounds - was about 400 toys short due to an organizer who normally provides new toys not able to do so this year. New unwrapped toys can still be dropped off.
“This will help greatly,” Pitt said of ABATE’s generosity. “And toys have been walking in today. We got the message out on social media, and I have just been amazed. People just walking in - one, two toys here; one, two toys there. Monetary donations.”
Money raised from the used toy consignment sale over the past weekend goes to buy new toys for the giveaway. Pitt said they do all their new toy shopping for the giveaway through Stephanie Derf, a resaler on Facebook Marketplace.
“She lives here local, she’s wonderous. She is amazing. So all year she collects toys for us. She knows about what we’re going to spend. She added to it this year because our sale was really, really good this year. And she delivers the toys to us, with the UPC symbols already marked through. She’s amazing,” Pitt said. “Since we found out we were not receiving the other toys, people have been calling Stephanie and saying, ‘Can I PayPal you money?’ ‘Can I Venmo you money?’ And then Stephanie’s been bringing more toys.”
Pitt said the response to the need has been amazing.
“Our community - I have cried more today just watching them walk through the door,” she said.
The Salvation Army walked four boxes of toys in to Pitt. Envoy Ken Locke told Pitt he believed they had enough toys for the families they were covering.
“He said, ‘Toy Time is our safety net. When we are done adopting, we send them to you.’ All of the Adopt-A-Family (programs) - CCS, Salvation Army - all of them send who doesn’t get adopted to us. He said, ‘So, our people are coming to you,’ and he goes, ‘I looked at my wife, she said let’s grab toys and go,’” Pitt recalled.
The programs are not in competition, she said, and they’re working together to make sure all the children are taken care of.
ABATE generally does baby and teen items, Pitt said. The toys she’s not getting are the in-between ages of 4-10. They are still in need of those.
Allan Ross, county representative for ABATE, said they’ve been raising money through various fundraisers for the whole year. Those fundraisers include a motorcycle ride and a big annual event called Treasures for Kids.
Rhonda Hardy, ABATE treasurer for Kosciusko County, said Treasures for Kids is their biggest fundraiser of the year.
“We go door to door to the businesses. The businesses have been great, and donated a lot, money and toys,” she said.
Every year, Hardy said they get more and more bicycles and this year beat the record by three. Most years, they also receive a grant to help purchase bicycles, but this year they did not, but still they managed to buy more for the kids than past years.
Cindy Martin donated $1,500 to the Fulton and Kosciusko counties’ ABATEs. “She bought us 10 bikes and then gave us money to buy more toys with. It’s as a memorial for her husband,” Hardy said. Cindy and her husband, Mike, were ABATE members for a long time and Cindy felt that’s what Mike would have wanted her to do with the money raised from a benefit ride for them this past summer. “A big thank you to her. She went above and beyond,” Hardy said.
Pitt noted that ABATE prays over the bikes for the children receiving them.
Hardy said Christian Motorcycle Association (CMA) works side by side with ABATE. “When we get all the bikes in, we bless them. They’re all blessed,” she said. Each bicycle also gets a little sticker and an ABATE license plate to show that they were blessed.
When asked why ABATE has been participating in CCS and Toy Time for three decades, Hardy said, “Look at the kids. And look at the great things CCS does. It’s a privilege to be a part of that, it really is.”
Ross said, “ABATE is more than just motorcycle safety. We’re about the community. We’re about children.”
Pitt said not only does ABATE make donations, but they also volunteer for Toy Time, too. “The extent that they go to just to support our community is amazing,” she stated.
“This is big for us. This is our biggest event, our fundraiser, because we love it. We just love it,” Hardy said.
She gave a big thank-you to all the businesses and people who donated to make it all happen.
Ross said a person doesn’t have to have a motorcycle to be a part of ABATE. Their meetings are the first Saturday of the month at the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) at 3:30 p.m.