Kids & Family
Somerville Boy Helps Special Needs Peers Ride Bikes
A five-year-old Somerville resident who's legally blind started a lemonade stand to help other kids with disabilities. He raised $1,500 before squeezing the first lemon, and his effort has transformed into full-fledged non-profit.
Somerville resident Steven "Bug" De Angelis, 5, is legally blind and has apraxia, making it difficult for him to balance, and he lives with Asperger's syndrome. He loves to ride his bike.
It's a semi-customized "adaptive bike"—a tricycle, actually, with features to suit his unique requirements—and thanks to Steven, he won't be the only child with disabilities to sport such a cool ride.
That's because Steven organized a lemonade stand in August to raise money so other families could afford an adaptive bikes for their special needs kids.
The lemonade stand raised about $1,500 before it was even set up, and it raised another $900 in lemonade sales when it was open on a Sunday afternoon in Maxwell's Green, according to Kelly, Steven's mother.
Already, Steven's efforts have helped the Brown family, from Belmont, afford a bike for their 5-year-old daughter, Sienna, and Steven's efforts have been featured on Channel 4.
Now, Steven and the De Angelis family have incorporated as a non-profit, filed for 501(3)3 status, launched a website and organized a holiday fundraiser.
Their immediate goal is to buy adaptive bikes for five more families by May, just in time for the summer riding season. Their long-term plan is to continue the effort so that Bug's Bikes, the name of the non-profit, becomes a sustainable organization, helping families buy adaptive bikes they otherwise couldn't afford.
The lemonade stand
Steven's fundraising venture started over the summer when he attended Adaptive Bike Camp at Franciscan Hospital for Children, where 35 kids, all with different health care needs, got to ride adaptive bikes, giving them an opportunity to get physical activity, have fun, be independent and partake in a favorite childhood activity.
On his way home from camp one day, Steven asked why most of the other kids didn't take their bikes home, as he did.
"Most of the other children were borrowing their bikes from Franciscan … mostly because of cost. It's cost prohibitive," said Kelly De Angelis.
The De Angelis family was able to afford a bike for Steven thanks to a grant they received from Children's Hospital and CVS Carmark, she said. Bikes can retail for anywhere from $900 to $3,000, she said, depending on the model and extra features needed. Steven's bike has an automatic drive and a special back rest. Sienna's bike has velcro straps for her feet, and other bikes come with special push bars, steering pins, hand pedals and other features, depending on the needs of the rider.
The price is out of reach for middle-class families, Kelly added, because "your money has to go elsewhere"—to medical costs, special household equipment and therapy, for instance—and there's no public assistance for middle-class families for things like a bike.
That day in the car, Steven thought about the problem, then asked, "Can I have a lemonade stand?"
The family—Steven's father, Steve, is a Somerville native—had just moved into Maxwell's Green, a community of apartments and some condos, so there aren't streets, in the normal sense, on which to set up a lemonade stand.
Kelly brought Steven into the property manager's office to ask permission. The property manager said yes, and scheduled the lemonade stand to take place during another event on the property.
Exceeding their goal
Steven's original plan was to raise about $200 to help the Brown family afford a bike for their daughter, Sienna.
"On Friday"—two days before the lemonade sale—"we were able to call her family and say were paying for the whole bike," Kelly said.
After the De Angelis family posted about the lemonade stand on Facebook, they raised nearly $1,500, before selling their first cup of juice.
Seeing Sienna ride her new bike and seeing the other children at Adaptive Bike Camp convinced the De Angelis family to continue the work beyond the lemonade-stand level.
They bought the bugsbikes.org domain name and incorporated as a Massachusetts non-profit.
Their effort also got the attention of Boston's Channel 4, the local CBS affiliate, which produced a segment about Steven's effort.
Since the segment aired on Nov. 7, Bug's Bikes has earned more than 700 friends on Facebook and raised another $2,000.
Eat, Drink … Shop!
Next up for Bug's Bikes is a holiday fundraiser at East End Grille. Called "Eat, Drink … Shop!," the Dec. 12 event will feature items for sale made by local artists. You can also buy Bug's Bikes Christmas ornaments—little red tricycles, of course.
To learn more, visit bugsbikes.org or facebook.com/bugsbikes.
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