Volunteer: Share the Love contest nets grandmother black Beetle

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Naperville’s Connie Hankins, 69, has been assembling and modifying trikes for children with special needs since 1996, when she got involved with the telecom Pioneers. Late last month, the project earned her a 2012 Volkswagen Beetle through the third annual Fox Valley Volkswagen LOVEbug “Share the Love” contest. | Submitted

Updated: March 9, 2012 8:02AM

A passion for giving modified tricycles to children with special needs has netted new wheels for Naperville’s Connie Hankins.

Hankins, 69, has been assembling and modifying trikes for children with special needs since 1996, when she got involved with the telecom Pioneers, her husband Gordon’s retirement organization. Late last month, the project earned her a 2012 Volkswagen Beetle through the third annual Fox Valley Volkswagen LOVEbug “Share the Love” contest.

To date, almost 1,100 children have benefited from receiving a free tricycle, Hankins said. Many of the tots cannot pedal a regular three-wheeler, so foot pedal containments and special back supports with safety belts are added to each, along with upright handlebars if needed.

Most have gone to local recipients, Hankins said, until Diane Sawyer on ABC News and People magazine featured the project last year.

“We’ve had requests from all but four states,” Hankins said. “It’s really been quite phenomenal. We’ve even sent one trike to a child in Afghanistan.”

Still, Naperville recipients number 60 to 80 a year, she said.

Despite that Hankins started the year with congestive heart failure, the couple prepared and delivered 133 trikes in the past year alone.

Hankins’ background as a retired registered nurse and her love of children initially drew her to the project, she said.

“The project just caught my eye.”

The mother of Kim (Hankins) Flanagan and Kristine (Hankins) Griffith and grandmother of two boys, she worked 21 years as a surgical nurse at Edward Hospital before retiring when Gordon’s job took the couple to South Korea. There she headed Red Cross blood drives, substituted as a school nurse on a military base and volunteered to carry babies to their adoptive parents in the United States.

After returning to her home country, Hankins discovered the tricycle project, which was then managed by Lou Wegerer. “He was looking for help, possibly someone to take it over,” she said. “We didn’t know that then, but that’s the way it worked!”

Soon Gordon was involved, too.

“It made sense that we would work together,” Hankins said.

Early last fall, however, the couple discovered that their seat back provider was going out of business. When engineer Gene DiMonte of Naperville heard of the problem, though, he designed a new seat back.

“He had it off to the manufacturer the next day for a prototype,” Hankins said.

The Hankinses, who build and modify the children’s conveyances in their basement workshop, also recently received some help in assembling the tricycles from USA Skills classes in all the Naperville District 204 high schools, Hankins said.

Anyone seeking a tricycle for a child should request a form that must be signed by the child’s therapist, Hankins explained. Also, with each trike costing about $200, donations are always welcome at www.pioneersvolunteer.org.

Kim nominated her mother for the LOVEbug “Share the Love” award after reading about the contest in The Naperville Sun. Fox Valley Volkswagen owner Emir Abinion doubled his donation this year, expanding the program to nonprofits to help with their fundraising efforts, and more than 69,000 online votes from around the country were tallied.

At a Jan. 20 grand finale event, Hankins and Children’s Oncology Services were announced as the winners, with each awarded a car.

“I chose a black one,” Hankins said. “It was so exciting, I can’t even describe it!”

Hankins credits her faith as fueling her passion for the tricycle project.

“God has shown me great love, and I just want to pass it on,” she said. “You see all the happiness and the (joy of) the parents. It’s really a blessing.”

Nominate a volunteer by emailing columnist Sandy Stevens at wordsbysandy@gmail.com