June 2014
We love to hear from people whose lives have been touched by P4P and our partners. We have been contacted by a woman who is connected with the Peace Corps and is in the process of campaigning for P4P to come to Grozesti, Moldova. If all goes well, we will ship to them in early spring. Just one container of bikes can change the lives of people in this small isolated town. Here is her message:
“My name is Carol Stadden. I am a retired baker serving as a Peace Corps volunteer for two years in a small Moldovan village in Eastern Europe called Grozesti. Moldova is a country approximately the size of Pennsylvania and is considered the poorest in Europe. Peace Corp’s mission is to promote world peace and friendship with a commitment to improving the quality of life in each host country. I am in the Small Enterprise Development program. When I first arrived at [the] site, I heard there was a village where everyone rode a bike. How incredible! In 2005, a Peace Corps volunteer, working with P4P, had arranged for 500 bikes to be shipped to his village of Pelenia. I talked to the mayor of my village and she was eager to give Grozesti the same opportunity.
“Many people in the village own bikes, but they are extremely old and heavy one-speed models unsuitable for navigating the rocky, hilly, unpaved roads of Grozesti. Because of P4P, the communi ty will not only be able to purchase sturdy, quality bikes for an extremely affordable price but the bikes will enable farmers to get to and from their fields more easily and children to ride to and from school–sometimes as far as 5km. I hope to work with a group of high-school students to catalogue, repair, and sell the bikes so they can learn valuable business and employment skills. There is also the possibility that a community member will step forward to start a small bicycle parts/repair shop. Any surplus funds from this project would be used to assist them.
“I am an avid cyclist back home and the first thing I did once I arrived in Moldova was to buy a bicycle. This is the perfect way for me to share my enthusiasm for cycling while promoting small business. These bikes are generating so much excitement in the village, I believe there may be a bicycle club in Grozesti’s future! To learn more about Grozesti, please go to grozesti.weebly.com. One of my first projects was to create this website as a means of promoting the village and assist me in integration.”