Pickett’s Corner, a charitable initiative administered through the Diocese of Covington’s branch of Catholic Charities, held a donation event at Notre Dame Academy Saturday morning, where residents could donate bikes that would eventually be given away to guests at the Parish Kitchen in Covington.
Pickett’s Corner is named after Alan Pickett, the former executive director of the local branch of Catholic Charities, who retired last year and who’s an avid cyclist. Former Catholic Charities Board Member Jim Bolz was among the first to notice that the guests at the Parish Kitchen often needed transportation, and the attempt to fill that need eventually culminated in Pickett’s Corner.
“They need bikes for transportation,” said Steve Wilmhoff, who was integral in Pickett’s Corner’s founding. “Adults do, and so his idea was to do bike repair; give away some bikes. He didn’t really didn’t know how this was going to look. We just just started from the seat of our pants.”
Pickett’s Corner collects donated bikes, repairs them and then distributes them to guests of Parish Kitchen who demonstrate a need. Guests can get bikes on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at Parish Kitchen on Madison Avenue in Covington from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wilmhoff said that the current plan is to distribute the bikes between the months of March and October, but that may change depending on the circumstances. Current Catholic Charities Executive Director Chris Goddard said Pickett’s Corner gave away about 450 bikes last year.
Goddard said that Pickett’s Corner and Catholic Charities generally are trying to be more deliberate in how they help people in the community.
“Now we’re putting up where they have to text if they’re interested in a bike, and then we call them and we get a better sense of what their needs are,” Goddard said,”because what we’re trying to do is move away from just giving, which can be an unhealthy relationship, to a healthy one where we want to accompany them if they need additional help, whatever that may be. We get to know them a little bit better.”
Goddard formerly taught religion and theology at Notre Dame Academy, and Saturday’s event was largely put together by one of his former students, Josie Bozeman, who’s a junior at Notre Dame and Wilmhoff’s granddaughter. Bozeman thought such an event would serve well as an alms-giving event for the Lenten season, especially for teenagers who may not have income to donate but might have an unused bike they could give away.
“We decided that we wanted to do it during Lent so that it could be like an alms-giving opportunity for people,” Bozeman said. “We worked out some of the logistics, had a few meetings and then made the announcement and got started getting bikes two weeks ago.”
Bozeman is an avid cyclist herself. She’s a member of two mountain biking teams: the Northern Kentucky Roots and a team out of Mason, Ohio called the Lionhearts. She’s also involved in program called Girls Riding Together, or GRiT, which aims to increase girls’ access to the sport of mountain biking.
“Our team is super fun,” Bozeman said. “We have a great atmosphere just trying to get people on their bikes. The competitive part is a piece, but it’s mainly the fun aspect.”
The team had collected 23 bikes before the event and collected five more from donors within the first hour of the event.
Karl Oberjohn, a mechanical engineer, was one of the donors at the event and gave away bicycle that he had actually built with his father in the 80s–a bit of a bittersweet moment, but he was glad that the bike was going to good use.
“There are people who need the transportation, and there are others [for whom] it’d be great to get outside more, be active,” Oberjohn said.
He added that it was good to “get that awareness in the community.”
Learn more about Pickett’s Corner, including how to give either a monetary or bike donation, at Covington Catholic Charities dedicated webpage.