FORT MYERS – A Michigan Army veteran who turned his lifestyle all around with a bicycle shop died in a crash even though offering free bikes to children in southwest Florida affected by Hurricane Ian.
Steven Pringle, 57, was killed in Punta Gorda on November 23rd, a couple months immediately after a profile in the Detroit Totally free Press described how his enthusiasm for fixing bikes had touched many persons in Michigan’s Higher Peninsula.
“Just one girl mentioned, ‘We couldn’t pay for a bicycle, and your father gave my son a bicycle.’ I was genuinely blown away at the impact that he experienced,” Pringle’s son, Jason Pringle, explained to the Cost-free Press very last week.
A person placed a bicycle, painted white, at the scene of the Punta Gorda crash, a prevalent memorial to victims of deadly collisions. There is a message on the body: “May possibly the legend reside on.”
Pringle was driving a pickup truck with a trailer of bikes when he drove by an intersection that was missing a cease indication due to the hurricane, the Free of charge Push claimed.
Pringle previously this yr instructed the newspaper that he experienced been in despair, feeding on poorly and dwelling in a camper when he had an awakening even though praying the Catholic rosary. It finally turned into Make a Bicycle – Bicycle Treatment, a store in Kingsford wherever he fastened bikes, marketed new types and gave a lot of absent.
“I have experienced individuals in the starting who advised me, ‘You donate too a great deal,'” Pringle stated. “But the additional we donate, the much more that comes again at the conclude of the working day. I really don’t need revenue. What am I gonna do with it, obtain it and save it?”
