13-year-old Anson Pulk continues to donate repurposed bicycles to kids across the Gorge

Bike donations can be made at Cascade Eye Center in Hood River and The Dalles, Mountain View Cycles in Hood River or at Campbell Phillips Law in The Dalles.

After fixing, maintenance and repair, organizations can request bikes.

Some organizations that have requested bikes include The Next Door, Gorge Kids Triathlon and Hood River Valley School District, according to Kristen Campbell, Pulk’s mother.

Donated bikes are stored in a storage unit provided by Cascade Eye Center in Hood River.

“Now there’s too many (bikes),” Pulk said. “We’re overflowing, so we had to dump some ones that weren’t going to work well or were completely broken. Bikes were going out the door.”

With plenty of bikes to work on and completed for donation, there seems to be a shortage of volunteers, according to Jeff Pulk, Anson’s father.

“It’s a pretty cool thing but it’s tough because everybody that helps out with Anson’s Bike Buddies have full-time jobs, have families and are super busy,” Jeff Pulk said. “So, it’s tough to get everybody together, but the community is really cool. The community continues to drop off bikes to this day and we still have wrench parties. Not as much as we’d all like to but it’s just tough to get everybody together.”

Some improvements Jeff Pulk would like to see within the storage unit is better lighting, a designated working area and a lock accessible to multiple volunteers.

“It’d be nice if we had tools, a tool bench and everything in the storage facility,” Jeff Pulk said. “Like Anson said, we could give keys to wrenchers who’d like to come in and fix a bike. Even if they said they’d volunteer to fix one bike a month that’d be huge. If we had six people doing that a month that would work well.”

If interested in volunteering, donating or requesting bikes for an organization, visit Anson’s Bike Buddies on Facebook or ansonsbikebuddies.org.

“I am really proud of Anson.  He has worked really hard,” Campbell said. “It has also been a lesson in awareness of what some people have, and others don’t. But everyone, regardless of differences, love the same things: Bikes.  I am also proud to be a part of this community that embraced this program and a little kid with a big idea.”

Anson’s Bike Buddies will host its Spring Fever Bike Repair Party April 5 behind Cascade Eye Center in Hood River at 3 p.m.