Dom Pecora learned how to fix bikes by watching YouTube videos.
Scholastic: In 2023 you started a nonprofit to fix and give away bikes. Why did you start it?
Dom: I kept breaking my mountain bikes by riding them too aggressively. So I had to learn how to fix them. I told my mom I wanted a new bike that could handle the riding I did, but it cost $3,000. She said she would help me raise the money, so I told all the neighborhood kids I could fix their bikes and they could pay what they wanted. After a couple of months, I had enough to buy my bike. Once I got it, I just kept fixing bikes because I enjoyed it. At the end of the year,
I had around $2,000 saved up, so my mom and I bought new bikes for kids who didn’t have them. Two years later, we took the next step and founded a nonprofit: Dom Fixes Bikes.
Scholastic: How do you get the bikes to fix up?
Dom: Throughout the year, people donate them. At first, we posted on Facebook. Now we take donations through our website. When we get a bike in, we’ll tune it up and either sell it or donate it. We donate bikes to local Pennsylvanians as well as people in West Africa. We use money from sales to buy brand-new bikes to give to people in need over the holidays.