Local teen turns passion for fixing bicycles into charitable effort

PAOLI, Pa. - A Pennsylvania teenager is turning his passion for fixing bicycles into a charitable effort to donate bikes to less fortunate children. 

Dom Pecora, a 14-year-old 8th grader at Valley Forge Middle School, started fixing bikes when he was just 10. What started as a way to make money for a $2,500 mountain bike that his mom was not willing to buy soon blossomed into an obsessive hobby -- even after he saved up enough for his dream-bike.

"I still wanted to fix bikes, it was a passion," Dom told FOX 29's Dawn Timmeny. "It was fun, it was different every day, I kept fixing bike and then at the end of the year, around Christmastime, I had a good amount of money leftover." 

Dom used that leftover money to buy six children brand-new bikes for Christmas, a gesture that his mother Karen called "heartwarming."

His growing business, ‘Dom Fixes Bikes,’ was originally being run out of his mom's Chesterbrook home and bikes crowded every room in the house. 

"I'd literally go into the bathroom because it was the only place in the house where there were no bikes," Karen said. 

Eventually Dom was able to rent out a garage in Paoli for $100 a month, and last summer he decided to turn his business into a 401C-3 charity with the goal of donating 100 bikes a year. 

"We did 28 bikes for Christmas which was really cool to wake up on Christmas morning and know that 28 lives have been changed by something as little as a bike," Dom said. 

He raises money for the new bikes on his website and through his Facebook page. Dom also has his own merchandise line, and he still fixes gently used bike to donate. 

"Even if a small child comes in and says ‘I love that bike,’ and their parent wasn't ready to purchase a bike that year, Dom literally puts the bike in mom's car," Karen said.

Dom's garage is without electricity, so his work is limited to the daylight hours and is dependent on the weather. He's looking for a larger space and a corporate sponsor to help continue his mission to give back. 

""Just knowing someone's riding a bike that I touched and worked on and went out of my way to fix, or whatever, feels really good," Dom said. "That's what keep me going and what keeps these bikes rolling in and out."