My name is Ilan Shterenberg, and I’m a Young Ambassador for the Henrik Lundqvist Foundation, class of 2022. The Henrik Lundqvist Foundation was founded in 2014 by New York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist and his wife Therese to focus on health and education and to better the lives of children and their families throughout the world. The HLF developed the Young Ambassadors program because they believed in “The incredible power of young people to make a difference in the world,” and wanted to give youth a platform to do just that!

For my Independent Service Project (ISP) as a Henrik Lundqvist Foundation Young Ambassador (HLFYA), I collaborated with the Washington Capitals, the Henrik Lundqvist Foundation and Freedom Concepts to raise funds for and build adaptive “Dream Bikes” for children in need. This Dream Bike project combines two things I am really passionate about - helping people and hockey.

An adaptive bike is a piece of adaptive physical therapy equipment that is custom-built to a child’s strength and is recommended by medical professionals. An adaptive bike can help improve the life of a child with limited physical abilities (these include Cerebral Palsy, Spina Bifida, Down Syndrome, Muscular Dystrophy, physical and/or visual impairment, etc). The ways that biking can help improve a child’s life is by stimulating them which helps boost their cognitive performance, improves self-esteem, and can lead to the child improving their academic skills. Last but not least, adaptive bikes allow kids with special needs to have fun and feel included in activities accessible to others, and it can help change their lives for the better.

The “Dream Bike” program helps families in need cover the cost of the bikes since adaptive equipment is very expensive, and isn’t covered by health insurance most of the time. My initial ISP has raised nearly $8,000 from 90 donations made by 87 individual donors and organizations, with amounts ranging from $5 to $1,000. The money collected goes towards covering the cost of the bike for Lamar and the remaining funds will go towards funding the next bike for another deserving recipient.

Click below to watch short TV news segments from Lamar’s adaptive bike presentation and the impact the bike had on his family:
WUSA9 (CBS)
NBC4 Washington

Click HERE to read the NHL.com article about my original ISP of the Capitals-themed adaptive bike for 8-year-old Lamar.

Click HERE to watch immediate impact the adaptive bike had on Lamar’s life within the first weeks of receiving it.