Fifteen members of the Portage Boys & Girls Club of Greater Northwest Indiana showed up at Avalon Manor Thursday expecting a free toothbrush and toothpaste from a group of dental professionals. They also got a free bicycle, helmet and bike lock.

Gerald Watt, director of the Portage club, was visibly moved by the experience. “The more I see how many people care about my babies, it just blew me away,” he told members of the Dental Study Group of Northwest Indiana and the companion Dental Hygiene study group.

“It just really makes a difference when I see how many people care about what we do,” he said.

“I thought it was a blessing to see my kids happy,” Watt said.

Lydia Arroyo, 8, said she was “so happy” to receive a bicycle. “I thought it was checking my teeth,” she said.

Lydia, who promised she brushes her teeth every day, said she’s able to ride a bicycle without training wheels.

Logan Caldwell, 7, was thrilled, he said. He, too, knows how to ride already.

Lauren McKnight, 7, said she likes riding bikes with her family, including to places like parks. Lauren likes her new helmet, she said.

Dental hygienist Christie Corradett assisted Lydia in getting acclimated to her new bike and riding through a tunnel of dental professionals with their hands clasped above their heads, forming a human tunnel for the children to walk through with their bikes.

Lydia was very excited and joyful, Corradett said. “They’re such polite kids,” too.

“It makes you want to go out and give back more” after the experience of changing the kids’ lives, she said.

Corradett, who plans to retire this summer, is herself an avid bike rider.

Gene Ranieri, a retired periodontist, leads the dental and hygiene study groups serving professionals in Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties.

“I knew that we needed greatly to have a community of dentists,” he said, with top dental professionals from around the world meeting with Northwest Indiana professionals nine times a year to share their expertise. The hygienists meet four times a year.“If these guys quit learning when they left dental school, they wouldn’t be any good,” periodontist Eric Rindler said.

Rindler is the one who surprised Nico Williams and the other 14 youngsters with the news that they were getting free bicycles, helmets and bike locks.

He researched the Boys & Girls Clubs before deciding that’s the group to benefit from the clubs’ largesse. “I just see consistently that they do a good job,” he said, spending almost all the money on the kids and not administrators.

“We are not just a gymnasium where they go to throw a basketball after school,” Director of Philanthropy Ashley Luptak said.

‘We are really a service to our families and parents who work various shifts throughout the day,” she said.

Volunteers are welcome, she said, whether it’s talking with older kids about career options, helping in a STEM lab or playing dodgeball or basketball with the kids in the gym.

Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.