Sales of safety lights help buy adaptive bicycle

loading...

The chance discovery of a way to make a dream come true for one woman’s son, and others like him, came through an unsolicited, but now very welcome, piece of mail.

Former Brewer resident Cheryl McDonald, who now lives in Presque Isle, is the mother of 15-year-old Adam McDonald.

Many readers will remember Adam as a former Muscular Dystrophy Association state poster child and goodwill ambassador for MDA.

Adam has a fatal form of MD known as Duschene and since 1999 he has been confined to a motorized wheelchair.

A while ago, Adam had the opportunity to try out a handicap-adapted bicycle, and he loved it.

There is nothing more he would like to be able to do, right now, than to bicycle with his friends.

Unfortunately, for his degree of handicap, an adaptive bicycle would cost up to $2,000.

While going through her mail recently, Adam’s mother found a copy of Exceptional Parent magazine, in which she discovered a way for Adam to get that bike.

“Adam’s prayers were answered,” she wrote, when she read information in EP about “how to earn one of these handicap-adapted bikes.”

Rock n’ Roll Cycles, based in Levelland, Texas, has a program called Shine-A-Light-Earn-A-Bike.

According to its Web site, the program enables people to earn their own therapeutic cycles by selling flashing safety lights.

Retailing for $15 each, the lights are visible for more than a half-mile, in the dark, and come with an armband and metal clip for mounting on bicycles, etc.

“They’re about 3 inches long,” Cheryl McDonald said, “and you can hook them onto a bike, a stroller or a wheelchair, or use the strap if you are a jogger.”

As of Wednesday, May 23, Adam, his friends and acquaintances had sold 90 of the 180 lights he needs to sell to get his bike.

“He’s halfway there,” his mother said, “but he has a little mission of going way over that, so he can purchase another bike for someone else who needs it.”

Adam and his friends have been going door to door selling the lights.

He has received help from everyone – from his bus driver to teachers, neighbors and members of his church.

Adam’s bike, once he earns it, will have controls in the front “almost like pedaling with his hands,” his mother said, “and it will have 21 different speeds, which will be much easier for him.”

And while Adam and his friends are working to get the bike for him, they also are sharing the information with individuals and organizations so others with handicaps can have a bicycle, too.

Cheryl McDonald has sent copies of the Shine-A-Light information to several nonprofit agencies throughout the state, including “the children’s specialty clinic at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, where Adam goes; to Camp Sunshine; the Muscular Dystrophy Association and others,” she said.

If you are interested in helping Adam by purchasing a light from him, or if you would like more information about this program to help someone else, call Cheryl McDonald at 764-6245, or write her at 16 Mechanic St., No. 1, Presque Isle 04769.

To receive information directly from the company, you can easily search the Web, as I did, for Shine-A-Light; go to www.funmachines@rocknrollcycles.com; or call (800) 654-9664.

With a long holiday weekend coming up, you might get a knock at your door from one of Adam’s friends.

You can help make his dream of riding a bike come true, and you can help make yourself a little more safe when you walk at night, by shining a light.

It will be a hot time in the old town tonight as members of the 4/5 Multiage Class of Glenburn Elementary School hold a Family Sock Hop from 6:30 to 9 p.m. in the Glenburn School Gym.

Admission is $3 per person or $10 per family.

Refreshments will be sold, and children under age 10 must be accompanied by an adult.

The 4/5 Multiage Class is sponsoring the event to help raise money for third-grader Tristan Hersey, who has leukemia and is awaiting a bone marrow transplant, which he hopes to receive at a Wisconsin hospital.

If you are unable to attend the Family Sock Hop, but would like to help Tristan and his family, you can do so by making a check out to the town of Glenburn with the notation that it is a Tristan Hersey donation, and mail it to the Superintendent’s Office, 983 Hudson Road, Glenburn 04401.

On behalf of the Veazie Congregational Church, Lucille Cardin invites the public to attend the church’s plant sale from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, May 26, at the church, 1404 State St. in Veazie.

Cardin writes that in addition to houseplants, annuals and perennials, the sale also will include books and homemade baked goods.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.