City kids earn a sweet ride

For the ninth year in a row local Tim Hortons franchisees teamed up with the North Bay Police Service for the ‘Earn A Bike’ program. The program rewards 15 deserving North Bay kids who earned a new Raleigh mountain bike complete with helmet, bell and lock for their hard work and contributions to community.

The project, which is solely funded by the local North Bay coffee shop owners, rewards the children for having put in 30 hours of community service that ranged from helping agencies to picking up litter.

Tim Hortons officials says the children, between the ages of 9 and 12 years, were selected by the North Bay Police Service, who help coordinate the program and provided supervision while the children were out completing the community service hours.

“The ‘Earn a Bike’ program is a great way to teach kids about teamwork and the value of working toward something,” said Brandon Moffat, on behalf of all Tim Hortons store owners in North Bay.

“We are so proud to sponsor this program and I would like to congratulate all of the kids on their hard work and dedication to completing their 30 hours each of community service. They should all feel proud to know that the bikes and helmets they are receiving are so well-deserved.”

Kayla Larochelle, 12, says she was shocked to learn that Constable Aaron Northrup had nominated her for the reward.

"Actually my teacher in the middle of DARE class, she came up to me, she said after class Constable Northrup to talk to you ... I'm like 'oops' cause I thought that I was in trouble or something so I went into a room with just me my teacher and him and we all just talked and he said that he chose me for a bike," she explains.

"He says, but you have to do 20 hours of community service to earn this bike. I'm like okay that's not bad it's only like 20 hours so I started it totaled up to 30 hours, which is awesome because I did my hours of community service and more ... so that's pretty cool.

Larochelle says she racked up her hours by helping out her grandmother out at her house by mowing her lawn as well as helping out her grandmother's neighbours.

"I helped some teachers at my school with their classroom, cleaning fish tanks and a lot of other things. I picked up garbage around my area where I live and it equaled up to 30 hours of community service and I didn't find that it was that bad."

"I like helping out the community and so many other different things that I could do just to help out," she says.

The bikes in North Bay were assembled by Barry Klus and his great staff at Cheapskates. The ‘Earn A Bike’ program was initiated by the Hamilton-Wentworth Police Service in 1996, and two years later Tim Hortons became the title sponsor. This year, 475 kids will participate in the ‘Earn A Bike’ program across 70 regions in Ontario.