Folding Bike Giveaway - Contestant 9

Folding Bike Contestant S. Jones' Story

Here's the entry from Contestant # 9 in the folding bike giveaway - S. Jones of Champaign, IL:

Okay, I'm not sobbing, but my student almost was. Pam doesn't have a car and is coming back to school to get a better job, and working very hard. She's older than most of the students. Yes, we have a good bus system, but she loved the dumpy old bike that somebody gave her, and even though it was locked, somebody else made off with it last November. She doesn't live in the best of neighborhoods, though it's not the worst, either. She didn't mind so much in the dead of winter, but she was going to miss it in the spring and the bad guys had won.

Truth is, somebody has given her a Huffy. As she says, "God is good!" She doesn't want to lock it outside, though... and hauling the huffy down and up the stairs is tough.

She would love to have a folding bike... but I could see in her eyes that she
a: wasn't confident in her writing skills and
b: really didn't want to waste her time on what had to be some kind of scam, since that's her world.

Do I need to tell you that this is one of those ladies who will do anything for anybody? Who encourages the young students that if she can do it, and she's going to, so can you! Who has already overcome more obstacles than I can dream of and thinks the gift of an abandoned Huffy is worthy of rejoicing?

I could fluff this out and dramatize it to 1500 words or whatever when spring break is over I'll even see if I can get her to ride her huffy in to get a picture if it'll get her this far and try to get her once again to tell her own story... but I've always considered slick pitches to lead awfully quickly to plain old greedy dishonesty. That's my story.

Does S. Jones deserve to win the folding bike for her student Pam? You be the judge. Sign up to vote & we'll email you when the first 20 entries are in.

LL