Jeffrey Davis has spent his life in education and community service, and now his latest venture is transforming holiday tours into Christmas gifts and meals for underprivileged children.

Davis is the founder of Pedal Beach Tours and a former principal of Coronado High School from 1994 to 2000. He retired in 2022 as Head of School of TVT Community Day School, a K–12 school of 820 students in Irvine, California.

“As an educator, I always told my students that you should measure your success in life by what you do to make the world a better place,” Davis said. “During my educational career, I always spearheaded Tukun O’lam (Jewish concept of social responsibility) events. It’s important to lead by example through actions.”

When he retired a few years ago, Davis created Pedal Beach Tours. “Besides providing our community with wonderful tours of Coronado, all the funds raised by the tours are used to fund the Pedal Beach Charity,” he explained.

Pedal Beach Tours opened for business in February 2023 and has quickly become a unique presence in Coronado. “Pedal Beach Tours provides historical, sometimes hysterical, and mostly truthful tours of Coronado,” Davis said. “Pedal Beach is Coronado’s only city-approved pedi-cab. We provide a 9-mile 90-minute tour with the spirit of the Disneyland Jungle Tour. It’s super fun, lighthearted, and informative,” Davis said.

All of this fun has a serious and generous purpose. “All employees of Pedal Beach Tours are volunteers; no individuals receive any compensation,” Davis noted. “Even the tips received by the tour guides are not kept by the guides, but rather donated to the charity. We operate the charity with zero administrative costs. The only expense paid by Pedal Beach Tours is our liability insurance.”

Those donations fuel the Pedal Beach Charity’s work each Christmas, providing gifts for underprivileged children in the South Bay Area. “The children are identified by the South Bay School District. The children write notes to Santa Claus, and instead of sending the notes to the North Pole, we intercept them at Pedal Beach.”

A few days before Christmas, Davis and his team of volunteers deliver all the gifts the children requested from Santa, along with a complete Christmas meal for their families. “This year we ‘adopted’ 25 families and their 67 children,” Davis added. “We are providing over 300 requested gifts.”

The inspiration for this model of holiday giving goes back decades to a former CUSD Board Member and Imperial Beach Principal, Katy Roberson. Roberson would ‘adopt’ a couple of families each year from her school as a Secret Santa. Davis recalled, “She provided the gifts for children whose parents were in financial distress. I took her idea as the basis for Pedal Beach Tours. We would be able to do what Katy has been doing, but hopefully on a bigger scale because of the revenue raised by Pedal Beach Tours.”

Behind the handlebars is a team of accomplished volunteers who give their time, energy, and even their tips. “The trained guides of Pedal Beach Tours do not get paid, but they receive something better than money,” Davis said. “They get to see the smiles of children when they deliver the presents and family meals a few days prior to Christmas. The Pedal Beach guides are not only amazing guides, but also very successful professionals.”

Those guides include: Cyril Light, physician; Allan Goldstein, airline captain; Butch Loeb, physician; Bob Lancaster, engineer and attorney; Greg Kornfeld, businessman; Bob Lapidus, attorney; and Mike Keeney, retired naval officer.

For Davis, the heart of the project is rooted in a simple belief. “I believe you judge your success in life by what you do to make the world a better place,” he said.

Community members who want to support that mission can do so simply by taking a ride. “First and foremost, you can support Pedal Beach Charities by booking one of our spectacular tours,” Davis said. “About half of our tours are people visiting Coronado, and the rest are actually residents. Even long-term residents have been pleasantly surprised at how much they learn about Coronado on the tour, and better yet, how fun and entertaining the guides are.”

Pedal Beach Charities is a 501(c)(3) corporation that was created to provide underprivileged children with Christmas gifts and holiday meals. This holiday season, its signature pedi-cab tours are not just showcasing Coronado, they are delivering Christmas joy across the South Bay. For more information and to book a tour, please visit Pedalbeach.org. Or you can book a tour by calling (858)967-1189.

VOL. 115, NO. 52 – Dec. 24, 2025