VIDEO — Bikers Donate 200 Easter Baskets for Local Children: ‘Makes You Feel Good’

A motorcycle dealership in Lake Charles, Louisiana, is helping make Easter special this year for local children.

On Friday, the dealership joined with Toys for Tots to give away 200 Easter baskets, KPLC reported, and video footage recorded at the Harley-Davidson of Lake Charles shows the goodies lined up and ready to go.

“This started a few months ago. I happened to call the lady from Toys for Tots and I wanted to try to have some kind of event because there’s gonna be a lot of kids that may not get something for Easter,” Bill Doherty, a co-owner and designer at the dealership said in the clip:

He said they were the first group in the country to do an Easter basket toy drive for Toys for Tots. He said donations poured in during and after a special event.

“There’s gonna be a lot of kids happy today. What else can I say beside thank you,” Doherty added.

When families came to the dealership, their children were surprised with the special baskets or parents picked them up to deliver them to their children.

Local motorcycle groups donated the baskets in an effort to put smiles on the children’s faces for Easter.

“It’s awesome because there’s going to be some children that do not get anything because of times right now, and giving back to the community makes you feel good at the end of the day,” Doherty noted.

According to the Martha Stewart website, the exchange of baskets tradition is believed to be from medieval Catholics who were celebrating the close of Lent.

The article said, “They would bring baskets of delicious goods to church in order to be blessed by a priest” and the “symbols of fertility were passed down through the ages—the bunny, the eggs, and the basket itself—to be reimagined into the Easter traditions we hold dear to us today.”