Variety gives 3,000th adaptive bike to Pittsburgh child with special needs

Variety, the Children’s Charity, celebrated a major milestone last week: The My Bike program gave out its 3,000th adaptive bike for kids with special needs.

At a ceremony at Penn Avenue Place in downtown Pittsburgh, a child named Jude Palladini got bike number 3,000 from Variety, an organization that has been giving free adaptive bikes to families for 12 years.

The first moments riding your own bike are special, but that’s just the beginning of all the feelings for Jude and his family.

“It’s such a great gift, really a new opportunity, a new discovery for Jude,” said Jude’s dad, Rocco Palladini.

Palladini says the difference in what his sons can do has grown as they’ve gotten older, and Jude’s brothers are just as excited as Jude for the new bike.

“It will be a bridge for them to play together, to discover new opportunities, to be that kid everybody wants to be,” Palladini says. It will “open up a lot of freedom for him to go with his friends, be included.”

Paisley Gasowski got bike number 3,001 at the ceremony.

“It is so exciting to see how happy she is,” said Paisley’s mom, Victoria. “Everyone will get to be together — all be on bikes instead of just a couple (on bikes).”

In addition to the My Bike program, Variety also has the My Stroller program, giving out adaptive strollers to kids with special needs. It’s especially helpful for a child who is an “eloper,” which means he or she often runs away without understanding the danger of cars or getting separated from caregivers.

Variety’s My Voice program gives kids who are non-verbal or have difficultly speaking a communication device that talks for them. Click here to see a previous KDKA Kidsburgh story about Tyler Winfield, who got the special iPad and one year later was speaking on his own partly through the help of his device from Variety.

Tom Baker, CEO of the local chapter of Variety the Children’s Charity, says, “We just received $1 million from the PA Department of Community and Economic Development through the wonderful relationship with former Governor Tom Corbett and current Governor Josh Shapiro that will enable us to give, and continue to give, kids a voice in the Commonwealth.”

Variety’s bikes, strollers and communication devices are all given to families at no cost to them, and a lot more families qualify than many people expect. This chapter covers 59 counties in Pennsylvania, and to see if you qualify, visit their website.