On Monday, Freyre, an artist and student based in Chicago, chained her $700 red KHS bicycle to a rack before her 10 a.m. shift at Lake View Art Supply store.
Freyre ran outside, distraught, and out of frustration, she began angrily kicking the rack. “I filed a police report, but I still was upset because I worked so hard to buy that bike, so that day, I wrote a note to the thief and posted it to a lamppost,” she says. “I didn’t think the thief would see it, but it felt good to vent.”
The note, in part, read, “Do you know how hard I worked to buy that bike? Actually, you stole it while I was at work. I’m 19 and paid for that completely out of my own pocket. I work 40 hours a week. I go to school part-time. That bike was my only mode of transportation … so I don’t care who you are or where you’re from but you just stole something from a person who dedicates her time to making her life better.”
That day, a passerby snapped a photo of the note and tweeted it. By the time Freyre woke up on Tuesday morning, she had dozens of phone calls from local news reporters, inquiring about her bike. A news story aired that night and caught the attention of Chicago resident Robert Curry, 59, a senior vice president at Morgan Stanley.
“I was watching television and eating a sandwich when I saw a news segment about a girl whose bike was stolen,” Curry told Yahoo Shine. “My heart immediately went out to her because when I was in college, my roommate left the window in our apartment open and a thief stole $80 and my bike. I knew exactly how she felt and I wanted to help.”
Curry emailed the news station, hoping someone could connect the two of them, and then called Freyre and asked if she could meet him at Kozy's Cyclery, a local bike shop, and to bring along a friend.
“After talking to Bob on the phone, he put me at ease, and I could tell he really wanted to help,” says Freyre. On Wednesday, she and a girlfriend met Bob and his daughter Jessica, a digital sales rep at Glam Media, and Curry told her to select any bike she wanted. Freyre picked a black-and-white hybrid bicycle, and Curry picked up the tab. Afterward, he treated the three young women to a sushi lunch at Union Sushi + Barbeque Bar.
“I was so blown away by Bob’s kindness and I don’t know how to thank him,” says Freyre, who offered to create a drawing for the Curry family. She’s also become fast friends with Jessica, and to further pay it forward, the two may team up to launch a fundraiser with the proceeds going toward children who need bicycles.
Curry wants nothing in return for his gesture, but there’s one caveat: “I told Olgi that she could have the bike on the condition that before her 59th birthday, she must buy a bike for someone in her shoes,” he says. “She has 40 years to fulfill that promise.”
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