J

an Maloff is so devoted to explaining the power and importance of bicycles, he barely touched his bowl of chili at Panera Bread. After politely sending it back to be reheated, he still didn’t acknowledge the bowl as he shared story after story.

Maloff believes owning a bike as a kid is a rite of passage. It’s a simple possession allowing its owner the ability to access maturity and recreation. He also believes, for some people, owning a bike is even more than that — owning a bike is a means of survival.

In the 1960s, Maloff would ride his bike to what used to be Syracuse’s Charles Andrews Elementary School each morning. In the afternoon on the way home, he would ride past Elmcrest Children’s Center, an “education center for children with emotional, behavioral, and psychiatric disturbances” in Liverpool. The 100 or so children living there would ogle at his bike and plead with him to let them take it for a quick spin.

Maloff quickly realized the power of the seemingly simple recreational device. He swore to himself that if he ever struck it rich, he would buy every one of those kids a brand new bike.

Years later, while Maloff is by no means a millionaire — he’s working as the manager of A. DeWitt Memorial Funeral Homes & Cremation Services — has found a way to keep his promise. For nearly 21 years, he has been collecting thousands of used bikes, refurbishing them and giving them out to the local Syracuse community.

“A bicycle is a seriously important tool,” Maloff said shaking the chili spoon with fervor, his face creasing near his eyes as he spoke. “It’s a tool to give low-income people the ability to get to appointments, to get to the grocery store. Some of these people don’t have cars and this is their only way to get around.”

Frankie Prijatel | Senior Staff Photographer

With this mindset, Maloff works with three programs to deliver up to 4,000 bikes a year to different families around the city of Syracuse. The original program was dedicated to giving bikes to low-income families, the second gave bikes to refugees in the city and most recently, Maloff has developed a program where he gives bikes to police officers to give to kids in the community. His hope is to help them form better and more mutually-respectful relationships.

When Maloff started the initial program in 1994, he only had a couple hundred bikes to give away. But today, with the help of volunteers, he is able to turn around thousands. His biggest donation season begins Nov. 1 where, for years now, he has set up shop at the New York State Fair’s Center of Progress.

After enlisting help from local news outlets to spread the word, a slew of people bring their old bikes to the fairgrounds or offer their time to repair them and donate money for helmets and new parts. Today, the program is nationally certified as a nonprofit so they are able to receive large donations and in turn give tax cuts to those who donate.

Frankie Prijatel | Senior Staff Photographer

“It’s a great feeling to give out the bike, but I think I get more out of becoming friends with all these volunteers that show up in November,” Maloff said. “Some of these people are worth millions of dollars and they’re willing to get dirty and greasy to fix up these bikes.”

Two years back, Maloff decided to expand his donation pool from just low-income families living in Syracuse to the 8,000 or so refugees who came to Syracuse from Africa. These people, he said, needed the bikes perhaps even more than the families he was providing bikes to. And now, with the assistance of Amber Abraham, he is actively giving bikes to not only African refugees but those from Syria as well.

Abraham works with the North Side Learning Center to help people coming over from tent cities integrate into society. She explained that these people have so little, speak barely any English and are just thrown into a new life in Syracuse.

 Gif by Amanda Caffey, Lucy Naland and Kiran Ramsey

One day as she went from house to house, giving out shampoo, toilet paper and other simple necessities, she was stopped by three kids at one house who begged her to find them a bicycle.

“Here are these kids who barely have food, and all they want is to be able to ride a bike,” Abraham said. “But it makes sense, kids want to have fun, they want to be active. That’s the same no matter where you grow up.”

Initially, Abraham decided she would head over to Walmart and scoop up three bikes for the children — an easy price to pay for people who had so little. But then, out of curiosity, she Googled “bike donation programs” and connected with Maloff.

After verifying she wasn’t out to scam him and resell the bikes for her own profit — something that has happened in the past — Maloff sent her a truck with not three, but nearly 30 functioning bikes.

Today, Maloff and Abraham work together to ensure as many refugee children as possible are gifted with a bike when they come to Syracuse. They emphasize what a difference the bikes make on lives in terms of simple recreation as well as a physical means of getting to work.

Ayad Alzouadi is a 44-year-old refugee with seven kids. His family came to Syracuse June 8 and he thanks God every day for the six bikes Maloff came up with for his family.

“My seven kids play on the bikes almost every day, mostly on the weekends,” Alzouadi said through Abraham’s translation. “I am very happy and grateful to have bikes for these kids because before they were all sitting dumb with no activities, but now they can go to parks and have fun and find new adventures.”

While all of these programs are seemingly incredible, Maloff continues envisioning how to better the local community. His most recent endeavor was collecting 750 bikes, renting out the OnCenter and inviting 15 officers from the New York State Police Department and from the Syracuse Police Department to give the bikes out to local youth.

Frankie Prijatel | Senior Staff Photographer

His thought was he needed to find a way for children to trust the officers and the officers to trust the children during a time where there has been so much tension between police forces and city communities. The idea took almost two years of planning but finally came together this summer for the first time.

Sergeant Joe Domagola of the New York State Police was one of the officers in attendance at the event this past July and couldn’t speak more highly of Maloff and what he is trying to accomplish. He said many people try to plan events of this nature and very rarely do they come to fruition.

“These kids wouldn’t normally be able to have these bikes and I can’t even describe the look in the kids eyes when they get them,” Domagola said. “Everyone is seeing the police and seeing we’re not there to cause strife and harm, but we are there to serve and foster a happy and safe community.”

Maloff said he works so hard to conduct these programs and collect and refurbish the bikes on top of his day job because it’s “something he can do in his small corner of the world to make a larger difference.”

And with that, he took a bite of the chili.

Published on October 17, 2016 at 8:00 pm

Contact: ararcham@syr.edu