We Help the Community 

Remembering Jacob Aho

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By joining us at Hops for Hope and making a donation to Project Mobility you help us bring hope and happiness to those who are often told by society that their life is about limitations. Donations are truly changing a life one bike at a time. Sometimes that life is unfortunately cut too short but the happiness that you helped us give that child will live on forever. It is with heavy hearts that we share the note we received the other day: 

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"Project Mobility… I’m brokenhearted to share that

Jacob Aho passed away this weekend." 

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We met Jacob back in 2021. He was 12 years old and had been battling brain cancer for over 8 years. Dozens of surgeries and chemotherapy sessions had saved his life, but he’d lost a great deal: he’d worked hard to walk, but couldn’t run or jump, and fatigued quickly – but he kept trying. 

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Jacob’s mom wrote to us at Project Mobility asking for help. She explained that the cancer and treatments had left him “missing out on so much,” including riding a bike. He’d been too little to learn before his diagnosis, and afterward “the height off the ground, the handlebars so far away, balancing (even with training wheels was difficult), knowing to push back to brake – it was all too much.”

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She told us how nice it would be to give him this one thing back, and to have him “get on HIS bike and ride down the street.” She said that it would be “a way to give something back to Jacob’s childhood.”

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When Project Mobility gave Jacob his own bike at our Hops for Hope event in 2021, it made a profound difference in not only Jacob’s life but his twin sister, his friends and family. His mom wrote again: 

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“Project Mobility … look what you did! Jacob has been out and about loving how fast he can go. I’ve had to put my running shoes on to keep up.... I had to hold my tears back the first day he rode.”

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His mom wrote to say Jacob passed away on December 31, 2023. Even in her grief, she wanted to know how to continue the joy we gave to Jacob and pass the bike along to another child. We mourn Jacob’s passing and are awestruck at the love and spirit he and his family demonstrated.

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Hops for Hope 2024 is Dedicated to the Memory of Jacob Aho