Michele Ramos

Going Places

The Spark In 2016, Going Places founder, Katie Blomquist, was a first-grade teacher in a low-income elementary school. She had a 6-year student named Jawan who wanted a bike for his birthday and it shocked Katie to learn he had never owned one. She wished she could buy him a bike, but that wasn't possible on a teacher's salary. It was something that Katie couldn't get off her mind knowing Jawan was growing up without the joy of riding his own bike. The Idea As Katie started to ask around her class, she realized that most of the kids had never owned a bike. Remembering her own childhood filled with joyful memories of riding her bike all around her neighborhood, she set out to change this sad realization. Katie had the idea to buy all 650 students in her school a brand new, high-quality bike by starting a GoFundMe campaign. With the help of Affordabike, a local Charleston custom bicycle shop, this idea became a reality. The Wildfire Katie's campaign went viral and some of the top news outlets in the country reported on it including Good Morning America, The Today Show, NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, ABC World News, Time Magazine, USA Today, Post and Courier, and The Steve Harvey Show. The story behind Going Places was catching on fire throughout America. On March 30, 2017, she surprised every student at Pepperhill Elementary School with a brand new bike. After this successful event, Katie now had an even greater vision. The Vision Her vision was to create a nonprofit whose mission was to bring Joy to children in need. To make that a reality, Katie would have to focus her efforts full time on this new venture, which meant stepping away from teaching. In June 2017, she got to work on building the dream of Going Places, which involved rallying the community around her cause. It was important to Katie that her supporters understood why there was a need for Joy in these children's lives.