80 bikes built for Genesee County foster children

June 2, 2016

The J. Ranck Electric team has partnered with the Foster Closet of Michigan to give bikes to kids in Genesee County. In many cases, children come into foster care with only the clothes on their back. Foster families can’t always purchase a bike for the kids in their care; they must first focus on providing the essentials. Foster Closet of Michigan helps with those basic needs all the time, but right now, they’ve got a special mission to give bikes to kids in Genesee County and volunteers from JRE, DTE Energy, Barton Malow, and Inovateus are helping them pull it off.

As of Wednesday, June 1, we have met our goal to assemble 80 bikes. Forty of the bikes were assembled in Mt. Pleasant by the JRE Team, and then JRE invited the companies involved in our DTE Lapeer solar project to join us to finish up the other half. Employees from DTE Energy, Barton Malow, Inovateus, and JRE, finished the assembly and pumped up the tires before loading them into a semitrailer.

On Saturday, June 4th, the semi pulled up to the Foster Closet of Genesee County and delivered the bikes to their new owners, 80 foster kids who had been drawn to win the bikes from the Foster Closet.