Kiski Township police bestowed a rainbow selection of bikes for kids living in the Pine Valley Estates along Sugar Hollow Road.

Small Huffy bikes with silver streamers on the handlebars, along with red and green boys’ bikes, and pink models emblazoned with butter­flies with white wheels for girls, arrived Tuesday via a pickup truck.

“You have a better idea of who needs these,” Lee Bartolicius, the township’s police chief, said to Kristi Hollis, manager of the trailer park, as police officers unloaded the bikes.

Hollis said he wanted to avoid the school bus full of students returning home because, if they saw the bikes, “it would be a madhouse,” she said.

There are about 200 units in the Estates plan.

“Thank you. The kids will be happy,” she said.

The bikes are courtesy of the police department as a gesture to the community, Bartolicius said, as were coloring books, crayons, junior police badges and Kiski Township police wristbands.

“My goal is for police to engage with residents so they feel comfortable enough to talk to a police officer,” he said.

This is the police department’s first bike giveaway to local children.

“We want to make this an annual thing and to give bikes to other kids in different places in the township and North Apollo.”

Kiski Township police provide police coverage for the borough as well.

When he started his job as chief of police only a few months ago, Bartolicius found six abandoned bikes in a township garage and knew some kids would want them. Then police bought another four bikes for the giveaway.

He brought the bikes to Pine Valley Estates because Hollis was one of the first people in the community he met since becoming chief.

“I introduced myself to him because we are very supportive of the local police,” she said.

Bartolicius has since visited local businesses and others to bolster communication between police and the community.

Bartolicius said township police will continue to meet with residents and others in the community regularly.

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