BPP Turns A Single Tree Into 36 Bikes For Charity

Sales Manager, Eric Lincoln, saw a Texas Cedar that had been declared dead and tagged for removal as an opportunity to make something beautiful. “They were going to cut it down anyway.” Lincoln said of the tree and many others that had been affected by the central Texas drought over the last few years. So he cut it down and got to work on hand crafting a large bench for the children’s charity C.Y.C.L.E. to use at an upcoming fundraising event.

Changing Young Children’s Lives Through Education, formerly Elves and More, is a charity that provides bicycles to students for improved academic performance. They are dedicated to improving literacy grades in HISD children grades K-3. According to the Barbra Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, 72% of Texas students in fourth grade are below the proficient reading level.

Lincoln, on behalf of Building Products Plus, set out to create this bench for a recent fundraising event for CYCLE as an auction item. “The best part is that this tree was going to be cut down anyway and made into firewood” Lincoln says. The cedar, with many other trees that had died as a result of the drought throughout Texas, were deemed a fire hazard and were marked for removal. Lincoln jokes “no trees were harmed in the making of this bench.”

The end result was a beautiful custom cedar bench, made from a single tree, that raised enough money at auction to purchase 36 bikes. These bikes will go to 36 exceptional children that have worked very hard this school year to improve their reading proficiency.