Palms West Monthly • December 2011 • Page 1
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Happy Holidays!
West Palm Edition
Palms West
Monthly Mon Mo nt
All aboard the CityPlace train!
Meet Tristan, he’s one cute kid!
This holiday season children and their families can enjoy a fun-filled train ride at CityPlace.
Tristan is also the Grand Prize winner of Palms West Monthly’s Cutest Kid Contest for 2011. Congratulations to all the great kids who entered!
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In Brief
Volume 1, Number 7
Holiday HorseFest
Enjoy equestrian jumping competitions, pony rides and more at West Palm Beach’s Waterfront Dec. 11.
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THE ACREAGE • LOXAHATCHEE GROVES • ROYAL PALM BEACH • WELLINGTON • WEST PALM BEACH
One spontaneous act of kindness is now a burgeoning grass-roots philanthropy with a used-bike store and two full-time assistants.
December 2011
Palms West, Lake Worth chambers plan merger By ANGIE FRANCALANCIA Neighborhood News Group
Hello Dolly!
As the Dolly Hand Cultural Arts Center in Belle Glade celebrates its 30th year, we take a closer look at what makes this theater so enduring and unique to the community it serves.
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Photo by Elizabeth Burks/Palms West Monthly
New Wellington Community Center
The Village of Wellington plans to accept bids for the construction of a brand new community center – on the site of the existing community center on Forest Hill Boulevard – soon after the holidays.
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Wellington Idol is Coming in January!
Think you’ve got what it takes to be named the first Wellington Idol? If you do, you just might find yourself $750 richer to show for it.
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INSIDE Local Happenings ................4, 5 In Brief................................6 Nice and Easy ........................8 Arts & Entertainment ............ 10 Community Round-Up ........ 11, 17 Manely Speaking................... 14 Outside The Neighborhood .......19 Just For the Fun of It ............. 22 Classifieds .......................... 23 PalmsWestMonthly.com
Samuel Henry Hairston III, aka Jack the Bike Man, and his employees (from left) Rigoberto Ramirez, Uriel Ramos and Willie Berduo work year round to give bikes to hundreds of local children at Christmas time. This year they plan to give 800 bikes and helmets.
RECYCLING CHRISTMAS WISHES
365 DAYS A YEAR By RON HAYES Palms West Monthly
WEST PALM BEACH — “Everybody knows Jack The Bike Man,” Jack The Bike Man says. Especially at Christmas. He’s Santa Claus riding two wheels instead of a sled, the fellow who repairs old bicycles and gives them to children – always needy, often migrants – in the city’s poorer neighborhoods. One spontaneous act of kindness in 1999 is now a burgeoning grass-roots philanthropy with a used-bike store, two full-time assistants, one parttimer, and a list of about 2,000 donors, some with old money, some with old bikes. There’s also a secret location Jack calls “my Santa Claus warehouse.” By early November, that warehouse was already the temporary home to 500 bikes, repaired and ready to ride. By Christmas week, Jack will have 800 bikes and the names of 800 children eager to claim them. Yes, everybody knows Jack. But do you know his story? Before he was Jack The Bike Man, he was Samuel Henry
Hairston III, and the journey from Samuel to Jack is a bike ride full of Southern history, aristocratic privilege, defeat, despair and, finally, redemption. “I come from a Scottish family that came to Virginia in the 1720s with land grants,” he begins, seated behind a gloriously cluttered desk in a wonderfully cluttered office at 44th Street and Broadway. “My family owned 45 plantations throughout the Deep South. Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi …” The 72-year-old man in T-shirt and jeans doesn’t look like Southern gentry. While he sells used bikes from a former gas station, others along this stretch of road are selling drugs – or themselves. But then he reaches into the clutters and holds up a hardcover book. “The Hairstons: An American Family In Black & White,” by Henry Wiencek. “My grandfather, Samuel the first, ran a hospital in Meridian, Miss.,”
Jack says. Reaching into the clutter once more, he retrieves a colored post card of the hospital. “People said he’d come fast as a jackrabbit, so they called him Dr. Jack.” The name has stuck through three generations. But before he SEE BIKE MAN / PAGE 17
The Palms West Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Lake Worth Chamber of Commerce are planning to merge – creating potentially the largest chamber in Palm Beach County and a regional presence for its members. Both chamber boards approved an “intent to merge” agreement in October, which is expected to be completed in January. But Palms West Chamber CEO Jaene Miranda already has taken over daily oversight of the Lake Worth chamber. The Lake Worth Chamber, which will be 100 years old next year, was down to one staff member after its executive director left in the spring. The merger will give businesses of each chamber a larger networking base and greater political clout, Miranda said. Palms West has about 780 members and Lake Worth has about 420, for a combined 1,200. Only about 30 businesses were members of both. Though each represents very different areas of Palm Beach County, the merger is expected to create a regional business presence while still respecting the individual characteristics of its member communities, Miranda said. Each chamber office will continue to exist, giving the combined chamber a presence in both its eastern and western areas. The merger will mean a new name and identity for the combined entity, a task that’s still in the works, Miranda said. The Palms West chamber was created by the fledgling business community in Wellington and Royal Palm Beach 28 years ago. The Palms West Chamber now represents the entire central western communities, including Loxahatchee Groves, The Acreage and Greenacres. The Lake Worth Chamber’s identity, which dates to 1912, is synonymous with the coastal city and was created the same year the City of Lake Worth was incorporated. But many of its 450 member businesses are based outside of Lake Worth.