Every Kid Deserves a Bike

Onbikes is in their 13th Christmas season bringing joy to deserving children. Joel Gormon, Julius Tobin, and their team are on a mission to make sure “no kid sits on a curb as their friends ride by.”

“Remember your first bike?” OnBikes Co-Founder Julius Tobin asks. “Meeting up with friends, riding until the streetlights came on, making memories that will last a lifetime… Every kid deserves that feeling.”

Think about it: what did your first bike mean to you? Freedom. Adventure. Independence. More time for fun. A passport into a bigger, better, more interesting world, full of new possibilities. A bike is all these things—and so much more.

The founders of Onbikes want to deliver that feeling to as many kids as possible. In 2011, they organized a community bike ride to raise funds so at-risk children could receive their very first bike. About 150 people participated in the inaugural Winter Wonder Ride. That experience sparked a flame of excitement and generosity that grew, sweeping across the area.

Today, more than 5,000 riders hit the street at the annual Winter Wonder Rides, spreading a message of joy and freedom. Local businesses also come together to support the event and help build bikes for at-risk and foster kids. Over the past 13 years, Onbikes volunteers have built and delivered 18,000 bicycles.

Every kid. Everywhere we can.

When Julius, Joel, and their team say, “every kid deserves a bike,” they mean it. Making that happen is their mission. Five simple words, but, as with a bicycle, that mission has a lot of moving parts. The more efficiently those parts work together, the more fun and freedom is delivered.

“This is a team effort…” Julius says. “And that team goes well beyond this organization. We could not do what we do without our community partners. Who you invest your time with matters, and those relationships have made a huge difference.”

As word of the mission and vision spread, more and more people reached out, wanting to get involved. Corporations hosted bike builds for their teams and their clients, professional organizations invited Onbikes to their conferences and introduced them to members from across the country, individuals hosted fundraisers and organized bike safety initiatives in their local communities, helping the children who received the bikes learn to be safe and responsible riders. 

“Every event led to another connection, which led to more events and more connections,” Julius smiles. “People are eager to support this mission, and that means the world to us. More connections means more kids with bikes—every kid, right? 

“As we grew, it became very clear to us that, if we were going to continue to scale, we needed a lot of help. Chadwell Supply stepped into that gap. Robert Chadwell met with us, heard our vision and caught it immediately. He said, ‘whatever you need’ and he meant it. He said, ‘you can ride on our lanes,’ and that’s been huge.

“Working with Chadwell Supply, with the local warehouse managers and their teams, the drivers, and Jenna Palmer the logistics czar—this has been a total game changer for us. Revenue is up 400%, and we’re saving so much time and money on storing and shipping. We’re making impacts in places and ways we never could without that support… Chadwell Supply’s logistics expertise has allowed us to scale without missing a beat, and we want to keep growing, delivering as many bikes to as many kids as we can.

“The people at Chadwell Supply are amazing. They’re ‘yes’ people, ‘we will find a way’ people, the kind of people who show up at an event, and you want to keep hanging out after the event.”

Building better, moving faster

Robert Chadwell, one of Chadwell Supply’s Managing Partners, says he appreciates the opportunity to help. “They’re bringing smiles to the faces of children by providing them with bicycles… That’s a great way to invest the resources God has blessed us with.

“We saw they had storage and distribution problems that were hindering their ability to scale. So, Chadwell Supply stepped in to be that spoke in their wheel,” Robert says. “Our footprint allows us to fund the logistics of their nationwide shipping and local delivery. We are also consulting on technology and providing office space and administrative support, which has allowed OnBikes to expand far beyond Florida.”

Joel Gormon, OnBikes Co-Founder, says that support has been invaluable. “Scaling up presented challenges… The Chadwell Supply team has managed our shipping and logistics with incredible efficiency… They are a dream to work with.

“Recently, we’ve successfully executed two events in Florida and two in Texas. We were able to distribute more than 500 bikes to children at these events, and Chadwell Supply played a critical role in that success.”

“Four builds, in three cities, in two states, in six short weeks,” Julius adds. “We could not have done that without the infrastructure and logistics support provided by Chadwell Supply.”

“The rewards (of this partnership) have been immense,” Joel agrees. “It’s clear we’ve only scratched the surface (of what’s possible), and we’re excited about the opportunities ahead!”

Join the ride

If you are someone who also believes every kid deserves a bike, there are many ways to get involved in this ongoing effort. Join a ride, start a fundraiser, host an event—however you want to invest, the Onbikes team will provide resources to get you started and put together a game plan to help you succeed.

“We do everything we can to deliver the bikes and get out of the way,” Julius says. “The people we partner with—and the ones we serve—those are the heroes. People who care about kids in their community, first responders who help us distribute, foster parents raising these children as their own, parents caring for sick kids where every penny is going to medical bills, but they have another child who would love to have a bike—we do this for them. We are so grateful for every person who helps us make this happen.”

To learn more about Onkikes and to discover how you can get involved in their life-changing work, visit OnBikes.org.

To learn about more ways Chadwell Supply is investing in your community, check out ChadwellSupply.com/Cares.

All photos courtesy Onbikes.