4-year-old MN girl with cerebral palsy receives special bike

A four-year-old Elk River, Minn. girl with cerebral palsy may not have won the national contest for an adaptive bike, but thanks to the generosity of another Minnesota family, she will still get the chance to ride.

Emme Kersten, who has to use braces on her legs and a special walker to get around, cannot balance on a normal two-wheeled bike like her sisters and friends. She was hoping to win a $3,500 adaptive tricycle through the Great Bike Giveaway, which gives children with special needs special bikes for free.

Emme’s story reached tens of thousands of people through traditional and social media, but she was ultimately not one of the winners of the giveaway.

READ THE STORY - Help 4-year-old Minnesota girl with cerebral palsy win special bike

Shortly after her story ran on Fox 9, a family from Becker, Minn. reached out to the Kersten family and offered Emme the adaptive bike their own daughter had grown out of. It was the exact model she had been competing for.

“We heard from so many of you who refused to let Emme go without a bike, even offering to raise the money to get one for us,” Emme’s parents wrote the Bike4Emme Facebook page. “Our hearts are very full. We are blessed!”

Emme’s family picked up the bike last weekend and she has been riding it ever since.

“While it took a while for Emme to warm up to the bike, once she got a taste of it, we couldn’t get her off of it,” her parents told Fox 9.




The family says they are very fortunate that their daughter received a bike to accommodate her needs. Now, they are hoping some of the more than 400 other kids who did not win the Great Bike Giveaway will be just as lucky.

Anyone willing to help can visit www.friendshipcircle.org/bikes/needbikes.