Back to Military Life

Getting a special bike for a special family

Program looking for donations to help kids

Kate and Kaylie Beaupre share a quiet moment indoors on a sunny afternoon. Photo credit: Jessica Corey-Butler

Email Article Print Article Share on Facebook Share on Reddit Share on StumbleUpon

We tend to take simple things for granted. Like getting the baby of the family a two-wheeled bike, with training wheels. Then, eventually taking the training wheels off and gingerly letting go as our child wobbles and eventually rights, tasting speed and freedom. Then later, enjoying family bike rides, feeling the exhilaration of the wind.

Three of Kate Beaupre's children have had this series of experiences, but her fourth won't.  Kate is hoping that, with the help of community and good-hearted people through the Friendship Circle's Great Bike Giveaway, ending March 31, her fourth child, Kaylie, can feel the exhilaration of the wind from the seat of a bicycle.

Kaylie was born in Texas, then the duty station of the Beaupre family. Kaylie joined a family comprised of mom Kate, dad Matt (currently stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord with B Company, 46th Aviation Support Battalion), and three siblings. Kate explains that Kaylie was small at birth, but other than her size, "nothing was wrong with her."  At the hospital, she said, "she began having convulsions, siezures, feeding problems.  Siezures are tough - the longer you have them, the more they take."  Kaylie lost the ability to eat, walk, and stalled developmentally.  

Although Kaylie will celebrate her eighth birthday at the end of March, she has the verbal and physical abilities of a child between the ages of one and three.  Though her epilepsy has been stabilized with medications, her health is still compromised. "She's very prone to illness," Kate explained, "every year she has had some kind of hospitalization for major illness."  She added, "we are so fortunate to have the doctors we have at Madigan - they're amazing."

Kate also said, "I feel so fortunate to have the insurance we have through the military," although costs outside of basic medical do mount.  Here, Kate is grateful for the Extended Care Health Option (ECHO) through Tricare, which provides financial assistance for beneficiaries enrolled in the Extended Family Member Program (EFMP).  This program allows for extra expenses that come from Kaylie's limited mobility and feeding challenges; through ECHO, Kaylie has the special equipment she needs for her mobility and feeding challenges, and there's usually money left for therapies that help Kaylie. These might include things as diverse as an iPad for adaptive communication, to a music therapy program.

But that money only goes so far. Kate is a resourceful military wife, though.  She has tapped into social media groups that have exposed what Kate describes as a "huge population of special needs children" which she calls "community within a community ...  We're different than your typical FRG." And as the Internet brings together community, it also brings opportunity to light.  One opportunity is the Great Bike Giveaway project, which raises funds and votes and awards special bikes for special kids as those funds are raised.

As Kaylie scoots happily around the house on her scooter, Kate smiles wistfully and dreams out loud about the possibility of being able to go to the park nearby, together.  Currently, walks and outdoor family activities happen with Mom and Kaylie lagging behind in a red wagon Kaylie is outgrowing.  The bike Kate hopes to get for Kaylie is a huge expenditure: an $8,000 tandem bicycle that means Kate, Mike and all the kids could together feel the wind in their faces.   

But to make that happen, the program needs enough money to fund all the bikes for all the kids.  As of the middle of March, 74 bicycles were funded for 600 prospective recipients.  But even if not all 600 bikes are funded, the individual with the most votes in each bike category gets a bike.

Donate or vote for Kaylie by visiting www.friendshipcircle.org/bikes/2016/03/kaylie-b/ and let her feel the exhilaration that we all take for granted.

Read next close

Military Life

We have a winner

comments powered by Disqus