Tour de philanthropy: Family’s holiday giving grows

SANTA ANA — Five years ago, an enormous pile of presents under Tony Sclafani’s Christmas tree left him and his family wondering if they really needed all that stuff.

So they decided to spend their holiday gift money on bikes for needy kids. They gave 16 bikes that year, starting a tradition that has mushroomed and now includes friends and businesses.

On Friday at the West Highland Street Boys and Girls Club’s annual Christmas party, Sclafani, who lives in Newport Coast, will help give out some of the 625 bikes donated this year.

That first year, Sclafani said, “we decided we just were doing too much for each other…. None of us — my wife and two sons — could remember what we had gotten each other the year before.”

The rest of the family supported spending their money on bikes for other people, though perhaps not wholeheartedly at first.

“I’m a little abashed to say, back then I was younger so it was like, ‘Oh, OK, I’m not going to get as many presents,’ but I still saw the good thing about it,” said A.J. Sclafani, 19.

His parents asked if he wanted to do it, and he said yes.

“Each year I got more and more involved in it,” A.J. Sclafani said. “I just think it’s a really good thing we started, and I’m glad I agreed with them.”

Then they told friends about it, and in 2002 they were able to give 53 bikes. They broke into the hundreds the following year, and their goal this year was 500 bikes.

“Obviously we love what they’re doing,” said Derald Sidler, executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Santa Ana.

Before the club connected with Sclafani and Bikes to Tykes, the name he gave his family’s effort, children got toys from Toys for Tots. But a new bike is something any kid can appreciate, Sidler said.

“If you come here next week and see the number of kids riding their bikes on the streets of the neighborhood, it makes you feel even better,” he said.

Sidler is expecting more than 900 kids for the club’s party Friday. They’ll get to choose one of 475 bikes or a toy. The rest of the bikes the Sclafanis donated this year went to the other 15 Boys and Girls Clubs in Orange County.

Costa Mesa’s Westside Boys and Girls Club already gave out a few bikes and is keeping the others to use as rewards for kids in their homework program during the rest of the school year, said Dan Monahan, executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of the Harbor Area.

Tony Sclafani said he expects the program to grow next year. Two of the checks for this year’s bikes came from people in New York, but he has no idea who they are, he said.

They’ve asked friends to help with some of the responsibilities of collecting the donations and delivering bikes, and there’s even a bow-tying committee to decorate them.

There are plenty of other gifts they could give, but Sclafani said they decided on bikes for a simple reason: “What’s better than getting a new bike at Christmas?”