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High Point University freshmen build bikes for local children

More than 1,000 freshmen filled the Millis Athletic and Convocation Center at High Point University on Sunday to assemble bicycles as part of a team-building exercise. Photo courtesy of High Point University.

Members of High Point University's freshmen class began their semester with a team-building act of philanthropy. The group assembled 150 bicycles, then surprised kids from the YWCA and Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater High Point by giving them the bikes. 

Gwenn Noel is the school's associate vice president for student experience. She says the project gives incoming freshmen a chance to experience service learning the very week they arrive on campus. 

"We really believe in volunteering and giving back and service learning, and the best way to learn that is hands-on," says Noel. 

Noel adds there is much joy to go around when the local kids arrive. 

"Watching the children's faces when they came through the door, they had no idea they were getting a bike, so that was really exciting," says Noel. 

Noel says HPU students, faculty and staff donated over 500,000 hours last year to volunteering in the community, with that number expected to increase as COVID restrictions lessen. 

This is the fourth year for HPU's Bike Build project. 

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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