Roosevelt Middle School
Reported by: Paige Kornblue
Channel: WPTV
Photographer: Bob Leak
Date posted: October 12, 2009
West Palm Beach, FL - Portia Lockhart's first bike ride was a flop.
"The laughter I got from falling off," says Lockhart.
She has had her bike for awhile.
"About over 5 years," says the 12-year-old Roosevelt Middle School 7th grader. The memories from the two wheels, she'll keep.
But the bike, she's passing along.
Lockhart and her friends at Roosevelt Middle School brought in dozens of bikes to kick off the 'Mr. Christopher Jaeger Bicycle Drive.'
Some students even donated their lunch money.
"But it was for a good cause though so I was happy to do it," says 8th grader Daisiah Akbar.
Jaeger, a social studies teacher at the school for eight years, lost his life to lung cancer in August.
Teachers say Jaeger was at school one day and in the hospital the next.
"His way of teaching, he was just so fun," says 8th grader Typhanie Quest.
Jaeger was an avid biker who often rode to and from school on his bike. The students remembered this, so when the school community wanted to honor him, the wheels started to turn.
Roosevelt Middle held a memorial service in September, but this time, they wanted to do something different.
The school quickly decided to help Jack the Bike Man, Inc., the organization in which Jaeger was a volunteer.
Jack the Bike Man, whose real name is Jack Hairston, is known throughout the West Palm Beach community as the guy who fixes up old bikes and then distributes old and new ones.
"I need about 600 bikes for Christmas for kids who have nothing," says Hairston.
Hairston starts his work now on the Christmas bike donations and could use some help.
Hairston is accepting monetary donations for bike parts and additional bikes themselves.
The students gave Hairston a call and back-to-school went the Bike Man.
"I decided to bring my trailer this morning and I'm very glad I did because I need my truck and trailer to get these back to the workshop," says Hairston.
About 50 bikes took center stage in the Roosevelt Middle School courtyard and that was just on Wednesday, day one of the three-day drive.
The school will welcome new and used bike collections through Friday.
Roosevelt's medical science students collectively gathered $85 and purchased two new bikes for the drive.
"I think that it's just really nice to help people out," says 6th grader Maddy Dyer.
"I wanted to give other people the experience I had so they won't miss out on life," adds Quest.
The Roosevelt road to life: a lesson where you see it's about the journey and not just the destination.
