Stephen Montoya
Ever since he can remember, Fort Worth resident Larry O’Neal dreamed of having his very own bike – a rite of passage he felt cheated out of for years. Never having the opportunity to scratch this itch, O’Neal waited well into his adult years to reconnect with this magic feeling.
The way he puts it, is although he never had a bike himself growing up, O’Neal didn’t want other children to feel the same inadequacy of not having one. To combat this, O’Neal took it upon himself to pay-it-forward in the late ‘80s, eventually creating the non-profit Larry’s Kids. Over the last 38 years, thanks to a series of annual donations and a throng of volunteers, O’Neal has helped thousands of kids reach this rite of passage during the Christmas season.
And this year is no exception.
O’Neal and his group of supporters have already amassed a sundry of bikes that range in size to be donated this holiday season.
“Through the generosity of our donors and volunteers, we are able to make this mission a reality year after year,” O’Neal says.
Outside of his non-profit, O’Neal is also known for creating The Fort Worth Memories Museum at 1633 Rogers Road, a place he frequents daily that also doubles as a storage area for the many bikes he gathers for his drives.
This free-to-the-public museum is filled with a collection of 80,000 Fort Worth-related artifacts including nearly 60,000 photographs and nearly 20,000 documents. Tucked away in a corner of the Museum is O’Neal’s actual day job, a classic auto detail business that’s his main focus when he’s not pouring through antiquated documents or curating different sections of his museum.
It was during his time detailing cars that the notion of gathering donations to help kids get a free bike for the holidays first started.
“Larry's Kids started about 1986 and always just did it on my own,” O’Neal opined. “I started doing this with my detail customers and all the car dealers, Jack Williams, Charlie Hillard, the McDavid brothers. In fact, in the late eighties, I gave away 840 bikes and I mean, no internet, no nothing.”
Even further back than this, O’Neal verified that he always longed for a bike as a kid. Being raised in a “rough” environment, O’Neal says his request for a bike at age 16 ended with him receiving a broken jaw from his father. Not looking for a repeat response, O’Neal says he tried to let this feeling go, only to have it linger.
“I never did get a bike,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean other kids who have very little can’t either.”
After several years of gathering donations and handing out bikes to kids in need during the holidays, O’Neal created the non-profit Larry’s Kids as a way of legitimizing his donation efforts.
“I just made up my mind that I wanted to do something for kids because I think if you can get one or two bright days back when I was growing up, that makes a real difference,” he says.
Before the days of social media, O’Neal used to have to cover quite a bit of ground to get everything in order for his annual donations, including getting the word out about the donation site. Nowadays, he just needs to let his over 130,000 active Facebook members know about it and the message is sent. Although his donation info travels fast, it takes O’Neal a full year to organize and set up his annual holiday bike drives.
In fact, Larry’s Kids has become so popular, the line to get in starts at 6 p.m. the day before the gates open at Farrington Field at 6 a.m.
“The followers pitch in every year, and they volunteer and they have the same mission to try to help a child. And if you get anything from the city or the state or the federal government, you have to fill out a mountain of paperwork. You don't have to fill out anything with us. We don't even ask your name. Just be over at Farrington Field on December 14th and get in line and you're going to get a bike and some toys,” he says.
O’Neal is also shown an outpouring of support from the community during his holiday bike giveaways, that includes food, money and even guest appearances from some local dignitaries. He says the lines to get a bike every year can get long, but he isn’t worried, because he knows he’s doing something good to help a child in need for the holidays.
“Man, there was nothing worse than being a kid and everyone on my block had a bike except me,” he says. “I had a neighbor kid offer to let me borrow his bike for one week, and it was fun. But after that week went by, I was without again. I don’t want any kids to have to feel that same way.”
