John White, founder and program coordinator of Bicycles for Children, has been selected to receive the 2026 Community Hero Award from the Corona-Norco Branch of Assistance League® of Riverside.  The award will be presented during the Diamond Legacy Sparkling Future fundraising event celebrating 60 years as a Chapter and five years as a Branch, providing programs that meet the needs of children and youth in our community.

The event will be held on Saturday, April 18, from 6 pm to 10 pm, at the Riverside Convention Center.

White will be the recipient of this fourth annual award, which was established to recognize those who have “gone above and beyond” expectations to help local children and youth in the communities covered by the Corona-Norco Unified School District (CNUSD).

White credits Lanelle Gordin, chairman of the Corona-Norco Branch, as being one of the people who got him to start the program “way back when.”  In 2012, he was part of the Riverside County Office of Education’s Teacher Leader Certification Academy, which was directed by Gordin.  Participating teachers were tasked to create a year-long program beneficial to kids.  At around the same time, he purchased a bicycle for his daughter, and he thought of all the students whose parents could not afford to buy them a bicycle.

Initially, White thought Bicycles for Children would be a one-year program.  But he was encouraged to continue the program and, as more people heard about it, he received more funding and support. Says he, “It kind of just snowballed.”

The program has provided about 12,000 bicycles since 2012. 

His wife, Kim, and two children, Tyler and Tia, have been involved since the beginning, so it has been a family activity.  He’s also had the support of the school district and 200 to 300 volunteers who show up at El Cerrito Middle School each year to assemble the bikes.  Huffy Corp. sells the bikes at the rate they charge large retail stores.  The YMCA helped him initially and many other organizations and individuals have helped him along the way.

Bicycles have gone to students in every elementary school in the Corona-Norco school district.  Over the years, he has added schools in Lake Elsinore, Jurupa, Alvord, Riverside, Moreno Valley, Colton and Placentia Yorba Linda school districts, as well as organizations in San Bernardino and Temecula.

Last year, about 1,000 needy students received bicycles.  This year, White said, Bicycles for Children is scaling back and planning on giving out 550 bikes.

Each year, White contacts the schools and organizations and tells them how many bicycles they can get.  Teachers and school staff members select deserving and needy students to receive a bicycle.  They then tell him the name, age and gender of each student so he can order the bike specifically for those students.  Once the bikes are assembled, the teachers or members of the organization pick up the bikes and give them to the students.

In all these years, White said that he, personally, only gave out five bicycles.  “I wanted the impact to be for the people working with those kids,” he explained.

The nonprofit’s website states:  “Outside of the obvious physical benefits, our hope is that students receiving a bicycle will feel more connected to their teacher and the school.  Which might lead the student to improve upon academic successes.”

White, who lives in the Horsethief Canyon area of the Temescal Valley, retired from CNUSD last August after teaching in the district for 26 years.  He remains involved with local youth as coach of two softball teams at Santiago High School and umpires for two Corona area baseball teams.