Continuing GNN’s coverage of youth nonprofit leaders, the Pedal Forward Foundation in Georgia has distributed hundreds of bicycles to low income families, and taught hundreds of children how to ride them.
It’s founder, Jonathan Thai, was inspired to step up and serve his community after the local REI closed down a community bike-riding workshop.
At just 17 years old, the Alpharetta resident has already raised $30,000, securing 400 donated bicycles, and distributed 500 helmets, while hosting over a dozen free community bike clinics for children of all ages.
Thai says that in part, inspiration for the Pedal Forward Foundation came from his parents’ upbringing in rural, post-war Vietnam.
“Something like biking might just look recreational at first glance,” Thai told Points of Light, an international nonprofit which honored him with an award. “But it can have such a big impact for a family that doesn’t have access to transportation – getting to school, getting groceries, getting to a job.”
Thai is a high school triathlete, a body of experience he leaned on, together with his family heritage, to organize and drive the initiative forward to what it is today.
Along the way, the Pedal Forward Foundation received assistance from the National Charity League, the Young Men’s Service League, the YMCA, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, the Georgia DoT, the City of Roswell, Thai’s triathlon team, and various Georgia cycling charities.
The free bike clinics teach between 30 and 45 children, starting with balance biking and training wheels, before moving on to more advanced courses on braking, maneuvering, and dealing with traffic.
What Thai started in Georgia has now spread to chapters in New York and Tennessee, while next year, the Foundation will go international—to where it all started—on a humanitarian charity and cycling trip to Vietnam.
Youth nonprofit leaders are more common than you might imagine. In Arizona, a 12-year-old named Sloan recently wrapped up her 5th annual Diaper Drive, which channeled donations in excess of 30,000 diapers to a Phoenix food bank.
From the Upper West Side of Manhattan, GNN spoke with Max Owobu, who founded the Yenko Foundation at just 15 years of age. It sponsors children through private school in Ghana’s chaotic capital city of Accra. Owobu has already secured funding to send 10 children through the current school year, paying for their tuition, meals, transportation, uniforms, and supplies.
On Monday, GNN featured the work of 14-year-old Payton Obert and her lemonade stand, that has to date channeled $5 million worth of gifts and necessities to children facing economic hardship, or prolonged stays in the hospital battling illness.
The quartet of compassionate youth leaders is proof positive that one is never too young to make a difference.
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