Seneca Meadows announced on Monday that 135 children in Seneca County received a bicycle for Christmas. The Saturday before
Christmas the families entered a drive-through contactless loop at the main entrance of the Seneca Meadows facility with all social distancing and hygiene protocols in effect per local and state guidelines. Through partnerships with Seneca County House of Concern, Seneca County Head Start, Seneca County Veterans Agency, Ovid Food Pantry, Lodi Library, Lodi Food Pantry, and Seneca Falls Backpack Program eligible children and families were selected to
participate.
For Waste Connections, Seneca Meadows parent company, the Christmas Promise bike build started 20 years ago. For Seneca Meadows the story is an evolution of sorts. For over 10 years, Seneca Meadows was supporting another bike giveaway program. That program was Hoops Bike Giveaway.
“As in all things that change and grow, Seneca Meadows came to me and gave the Hoops giveaway new life as we evolved and rebranded our team into the Christmas Promise program about 4 years ago. Now it will live forever,” said Michael Scaglione Christmas Promise volunteer team leader extraordinaire.
“Our friends and neighbors in the Finger Lakes region joined with the Seneca Meadows family of essential workforce to build bikes for local kids in Seneca County, and we cannot do it without the tremendous assistance from our local essential workforce of vendors and contractors,” added Kyle Black, Seneca Meadows district manager. Weeks earlier, the bike build operation started with gathering “Santa’s List” with the partner agencies.
Next the bike build team working with local vendor, Walmart, worked to ensure each child on the Christmas Promise list would have the right size bike and helmet.
With COVID-19 safety protocols in effect the bike build happened a little differently this year so everyone could remain safe and safely distanced. The bike build event is usually a festive gathering amongst family, friends and co- workers with pizza and wings and tunes on someone’s Bluetooth speakers. Once the bikes were built the Christmas Promise team organized the bikes for
distribution day, which always happens the last Saturday prior to Christmas.
Supporters of the 2020 Christmas Promise bike build at Seneca Meadows were Seneca Meadows essential workforce, Michael Scaglione, Debbie Weaver, MJ Persing, Jr., The Protectors LE MC UPSTATE, John Nabinger, Chris Scaglione, Emily Campbell, Wes Campbell, Mike Bellone, Zoladz Construction, Vantage Equipment, Nixon Peabody, John Kramer, Finger Lakes Truck & Welding,
Hydroseeding Technologies, Tetra Tech and Waterloo Walmart.
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