“Knight’s Bikes” Helps Change Lives in Highland Area and Beyond

(Elizabeth Schanz, Sept. 18, 2022)

Highland, MI – A program that began with two wheels, handlebars, and a seat, is now taking huge steps to connect the community through bike donations aiming to provide the community with transportation, opportunities and smiles.

The Knight’s Bikes program in Northwest Oakland County has donated about 1,009 total bicycles over the past seven and a half years. These bikes were completely free to all recipients and are available to any and all individuals of the community.

This program was started in 2014 by Gary Cornellier a member of the Knights of Columbus in Highland, a Catholic men’s organization, who hoped to change lives through bikes. Cornellier works as a jail chaplain and attended a convention where jail and prison ministers heard an individual called “Big Mike” speak about how receiving his bike turned his life around.

Cornellier wanted to make the same impact in his community and he began to craft a feasible organization. With a budget of only 100 dollars a year Cornellier started to find any bikes he could.

The bikes he found were often broken, found on the side of the curb or abandoned, then repaired by his long-time mechanics Wayne Johnson and Gus LaRuffa. Other bikes were donated by individuals who no longer had use for them.

With these challenges of finding materials and spreading word of the goal of the organization, Cornellier hoped to reach the community in any capacity he could in the start.

“When the program first started I hoped to give away 12 bikes a year,” said Cornellier, “It really blossomed into something that is quite remarkable.”

When people caught news of the program Cornellier experienced an outreach from members of the community who contacted him about donating, receiving, or helping with the bikes project.

The program took root in the community and was able to give away hundreds of bikes a year. Cornellier estimated that each bike would be an estimated cost of $100 in store meaning that all the bikes donated have totaled to be about $100,000 dollars total.

However, the monetary impact is not what Cornellier aims to create, rather he wants to develop human connections, spread happiness and allow people to “see God at work” with the donations.

Cornellier worked to actively engage with the community driving around to neighborhoods to give people bikes. By getting into the community during bike shortages in the COVID-19 pandemic, taking drives to spot individuals fixing their own bikes, talking to many people at local events, and traveling to individuals who were interested in receiving a bike.

He noted numerous individual stories from “all walks of life” that he has witnessed first-hand through his charity. Large families trying to provide for numerous kids give the children the opportunity to ride-around, a woman who walked multiple miles to get to work who could now get there with ease and many other individuals whose lives were touched by a gift.

“The biggest impact I see is when they realize that the bike we are giving them is free with no strings attached,” Cornellier said, “Whether it is a homeless person who has been walking along the road, or a person trying to get to their job, or a child when we present them with a bike the smile and the fact they now have a bike is really thanks enough.”

Through these efforts Cornellier wanted to provide the wider community with a costless gift, no paperwork or other particular qualifications. Cornellier encourages anyone who is in need of or wants a bike to reach out to the Knights of Columbus in Highland, Michigan to get connected.

In the future Cornellier hopes to expand the bike program into other Knights of Columbus chapters. For now Cornellier will continue to reach out to put the community on wheels and hopes to provide joy without judgment as the program continues.

“I feel so blessed to be able to do it. I just hope that every bike that we’ve given that the people just simply know that God loves them and it’s just simply him working in their life”

Anyone interested in donating bikes or financial resources can reach Cornellier at 248-820-2208.