Consult-Nord, a local Moldovan NGO established to promote local economic development in Pelinia, saw the potential results that Pedals for Progress’s bicycles and sewing machines could provide and requested to become a partner. Consult-Nord started selling bicycles this winter after receiving a shipment in late December of 2008. The good quality, affordable bicycles are now available at a shop set up by Consult-Nord, offer numerous opportunities to villagers that otherwise would be inaccessible to them.
The photographs are from the sewing workshop at Consult-Nord from the first shipment.
Read more about Consult-Nord and Moldova in the Fall 2009 InGear.
Our project in Sierra Leone is less than a year old, and it’s already a success despite many initial logistical difficulties. Helping us overcome these challenges is the very generous Clif Bar and Company. Because of a significant grant from the Clif Bar Family Foundation, we were able to fund the vital first shipment of bikes to Sierra Leone in July. This got the project started.
Since then, our partners in Sierra Leone have already received their second shipment (described in Greg Sucharew’s article). As with all of our programs, it’s the first shipment that enables our partners to get their revolving fund started so they can pay for subsequent shipments. In the case of Sierra Leone, shipping charges are much higher than usual, and without help from Clif Bar, we never could have met that expense. But financial assistance from the Clif Bar Family Foundation hasn’t stopped there. They recently informed us they will be providing us with a grant of $10,000 a year for the next three years! This will ensure the growth of our program in Sierra Leone, as well as enable us to open new programs that, like Sierra Leone’s, are normally too costly for us to start. As you might suspect, these programs are in the very countries that most need help.
In addition to fueling athletes and health-conscious people-on-the-go with delicious and nutritious energy bars, gels and drinks, Clif Bar does a lot of other wonderful things for the planet. You can learn more at www.clifbarfamilyfoundation.org, where you’ll also find us listed among their Long-term Partners. While you’re there, don’t hesitate to purchase an “On Your Behalf” Gift Card from their site. You can support your favorite bicycle-recycling nonprofit, or any of the other noble groups among their Long-term Partners.
My family has been involved with Pedals for Progress in one capacity or another for over a decade now. My father serves as a member of the board. My brother worked for the organization in the 1990s. I began with Pedals in 2002. And I’m sure during this span of time we’ve donated a bike or two. So the idea of bicycles reducing poverty in the underdeveloped world is not new to me. I’ve heard the stories, seen the photographs, read all about the programs, I know how valuable a bike can be to a person in need. And this winter I got the opportunity to see the benefits these bikes produce with my own eyes.
Last year Pedals for Progress began a partnership with a homegrown nongovernmental organization in Kenema, Sierra Leone, called the Center for Research Training and Program Development (CRTPD). They provide their community with a women’s health clinic, a school for the blind, youth centers, and in general try to promote better health and well-being within and around Kenema. The bikes they get from Pedals for Progress help them multiply the aid—sales of the bikes fund their other efforts, and of course, bikes help those who receive them, as well as the shops that are established to service the bikes. The economic stimulation is widespread.
In early January 2009, Pedals for Progress sent me to Sierra Leone to work with our partner there and to get footage for a film I’m making about the project. Needless to say, I was very excited—this was my first trip to Africa.
I traveled from the U.S. with Shed Jah, who is originally from Sierra Leone, and who is chairman of the CRTPD board. We left Newark, New Jersey, for London, and from London flew on to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where we were met by three of Shed’s colleagues from CRTPD, and where I encountered a crowded, dusty, trash-strewn city of mostly unpaved red-dirt streets and poorly-built shacks. A far cry from the stately London I had left only eight hours earlier.
A few days before Shed and I arrived in Freetown, a container of P4P bikes had been cleared by customs, unloaded and temporarily stored away. It remained for our contacts from CRTPD to find a way to get the bikes transported another 250 miles to Kenema, where CRTPD is located. They needed to find a driver, with a truck, willing to navigate the dangerously rough network of roads. It took three days, during which time Shed showed me around Freetown, but they finally negotiated a price and got their driver.
One of Kenema’s growing number of bike mechanics
The roads to Kenema from Freetown are nothing like roads in the U.S. Even where there’s pavement, it’s not always much smoother than the rugged reddish-orange dirt roads we mostly traveled on, which during this time of year, dry, windy, hot, meant a thick hazy cloud trailing every vehicle, leaving a fine layer of dust on everything. It took the truck over 12 hours to reach Kenema. I arrived with Shed a few hours earlier in the borrowed United Nations car we traveled in. Along the way, our driver occasionally pulled over in one of the villages lining the torn road, and seeing me, an obvious foreigner in the passenger seat, all the young children would run up to the car trying to sell fruit, soda, or bread. I was surrounded and overwhelmed, but I remember vividly one young girl among them. She was maybe eleven or twelve and kept motioning like she was putting food in her mouth, yet her hand was empty, and you could see in her face, so was her stomach. For the first time in my life I witnessed abject poverty. It was distressing.
When the truck finally arrived in Kenema at the CRTPD facility, a crowd was already waiting. They were there to help unload, and also to get first choice on the bicycles. A staffer kept count and a careful eye on the bikes as they were unloaded, sorted and stacked inside their facility. CRTPD still had to decide on prices, so distribution was delayed. The disappointed would-be customers attached notes, or tied shreds of plastic bags to frames, marking the ones they wanted to purchase.
P4P bicycles at a local school in Kenema
Over the following days, I wanted to see how bikes were used in Kenema, and whether many people had them. So I went in search of bikes and discovered a burgeoning bicycle culture. I saw bicycles for rent, along with several bike shops and bike mechanics in town whose enterprises supported their own families, and provided employment for others as well. I visited the bike retailers who sold their products along the main road in and out of Kenema. I spoke with a number of students who used to spend hours walking to school and who were now able to ride bicycles. One young man told me he used to walk for six hours to get to school and back. Bikes definitely had a significant and growing presence in Kenema.
Wine tapper in Kenema
One particular group of men I met, who make their living with the help of their bicycles, were the local palm-wine tappers. A tapper wakes at the crack of dawn and rides for miles, heading outside the main city and deep into the bush, where he scales palm trees all day collecting sap, which is fermented into an alcoholic beverage called poyo. This is dangerous work, and tappers often suffer injuries falling from trees. Once they collect the sap, the large containers they use are roped to their bikes and they begin the long trek back to the city where their clients await. I have seen as many as twelve massive bottles hanging on a bike as its rider slowly pedaled by. This is much less burdensome than carrying them without a bike; plus, a tapper can use his bike to transport a much larger load in the first place.
During my stay, I got to see the other things our partner does, much of which is now helped with revenue from CRTPD’s bicycle program and the bikes P4P sends them. They provide critical support for local groups engaged in sustainable revenue-generating activities. They also help fund women’s and youth groups, and agricultural projects, like the ones I visited in the nearby village of Kpai, where rice swamps and cassava fields were being harvested.
At the CRTPD warehouse, Kenema, Sierra Leone
Among their operations is the Vocational Training Center for the Blind, a facility where the visually impaired are housed, taught Braille (using old United Nations reports for lack of proper textbooks) and craft woven products such as baskets and mats. There is also a women’s group that, among other things, teaches orphans and runs a local daycare center. There is a vocational center where trades such as cosmetology, tailoring, electronic repair, and mechanics are taught. And CRTPD is even able to provide scholarships for some students who would otherwise be unable to attend.
The bicycles CRTPD receives play a large role in these programs and ventures. People in Kenema clearly need basic transportation, and the bikes from Pedals for Progress provide exactly that. When CRTPD receives P4P bikes, they are sold at a nominal price so the poorest people in town can afford them. The revenue from these sales offsets the shipping costs of the next shipment, as well as funds CRTPD’s other operations, such as the vocational training center and women’s group—all vital works in Kenema. And once distributed, the bikes then stimulate the local economy.
Pedals for Progress sent me to meet our partner in Sierra Leone and film their operation. For me, seeing all this work with my own eyes, for the three weeks I was there, was truly inspiring. I hope my film captures that.
Dave, Greg and Adam with the first shipment to Sierra Leone
Doing good for Clif Bar begins with their responsibly made, wholesome—and rather tasty—products, and continues with their passion for giving back. Many of us at Pedals for Progress have enjoyed Clif Bars at collections, which require considerable energy, but now Clif Bar Family Foundation has provided Pedals for Progress another form of energy, if you will, in the form of a $7,000 donation to start a new project in Sierra Leone. And earlier this July, our partner in Sierra Leone received their first shipment of bikes. Unloading the first shipment to Sierra Leone
After a decade of civil war, ethnic strife, and severe economic hardships, Sierra Leone has arrived at a stable and promising phase. With a population made up largely of subsistence farmers, in order to secure long-lasting peace and security, it’s important that rather than merely subsist, these farmers thrive. Economic stability goes hand in hand with peacefulness. And bicycles are one means to contribute toward both conditions by developing a much needed transportation infrastructure.
Currently, in Sierra Leone, there are insufficient roadways, there’s little or no public transport, and, as is the case in most developing nations, the poorest citizens must walk everywhere. Using bikes, farmers can transport goods more easily, get back and forth to their fields more often, and of course, meet their other transportation needs. When it comes to moving produce to market, it’s possible for a farmer to move as much as five times what he could normally transport on foot by using his bike as a carrier. In many cases, Pedals for Progress bikes are even modified by their new owners with large baskets, racks, and even insulated boxes to carry perishable items. Such utility is indispensable in the developing world, and is ultimately the means for a family to live a decent and productive life with greater freedom and earning potential.
Now that Clif Bar has so generously helped get our Sierra Leone project going, more bikes will follow. With any new project, the most difficult shipment of bikes is the first one. Clif Bar has helped us and our new partner past that obstacle, and further shipments will certainly follow. With each new shipment, more people—more families!—will begin to live better lives in Sierra Leone thanks to Clif Bar’s generosity.
After the CNN Heroes Program in July, 2008, Dave Schweidenback received this email.
David,
Congratulations! A well deserved recognition.
I am a living witness to the powerful incentive your bicycles provide.
In 1995–1996 because of your and P4P’s help, I literally collected all the discarded lead batteries that people in rural Eritrea throw away as litter once these were used up or expired. People had no idea how poisonous lead could be.
What I did was to offer one of your sturdy used bicycles to any one who collected and brought in at least one pound of discarded batteries. I can tell you the entire Eritrean countryside was cleared of all this deadly litter. I made sure that the collected batteries were disposed of in an environmentally sound way. There were many other wonderful uses to which we put the almost 3000 bicycles you sent to Eritrea.
Thank you for all your help
Naigzy Gebremedhin, Formerly Coordinator of Eritrea’s Environmental Management Plan
There is no sleek air-conditioned tube when you disembark from the jet at the Tema airport. Rather, you walk down a set of circa-1950 mobile stairs to the hot tarmac, and you instantly realize you’re in a third world country as the pungent smell of wood-fuel cooking stoves assaults your nose. The airport was bedecked with the red, yellow and green Ghanaian flags to celebrate Ghana’s hosting the 2008 Africa Cup Football tournament. And in the distance, what looked like a thick fog was limiting visibility. It was the time of “harmattan”, when dry winds from the Mediterranean envelope Ghana in a shroud of dust picked up during a 1,500-mile journey across the Sahara.
Gary Michel, Pedals for Progress’s Bike Collection Manager and I met our Ghanaian colleague, Kwaku Agyemang, just outside of the terminal and jumped into the taxi waiting to bring us into the city and to WEBike headquarters, our Ghanaian partners. However, our taxi was instantly brought to a crawl as we plunged into totally gridlocked traffic. This is the permanent state of Accra’s roads. At times the capital seems to have more square footage of cars than pavement. And few motorists were obeying traffic rules we take for granted here in the United States.
So it was a relief to escape the congestion of the capital on our third day there and journey into the countryside to meet recipients of the bicycles we’ve shipped to WEBike. As soon as we reached the edge of greater Accra, the perpetual traffic jam disappeared and we had open roads before us.
We were headed to the house of a native herbalist, or healer, Kwaku Osei. Driving along the main paved road to Oda, our driver and the operations manager of WEBike, Ada Annane, suddenly turned onto a red dirt, dusty path leading through the forest. There were no signs and no markings to indicate it was there. Our path not only seemed too small for a car, but it was only drivable because this was the middle of their dry season. Four or five miles later the path just ended, and there, a hundred feet ahead, were three mud shacks with thatched palm roofs. This was our destination. This was where Kwaku and his extended family lived.
The air was thick with the smell of a small still distilling palm wine into a much more potent brew. We sat on crude wooden benches under a palm frond roof in front of Kwaku’s house. On the wall behind him hung a series of talismans that he used for treating locals who sought his healing powers for a variety of ailments. All of the bikes were out in the fields while we were there, which immediately indicated how useful they were. Kwaku confirmed this, saying the bikes had a very positive effect, helping people move more produce to markets, and giving them access to buyers they didn’t have before. But it was quite clear that they needed help maintaining their bikes. As more bikes arrive in Ghana, and specifically in Kwaku’s vicinity, WEBike will train a local mechanic and help establish a local bike repair shop. More bikes are needed to make such a business viable.
Our first day in the countryside ended with a meal of FuFu, which is pounded casava dumplings in a goat stew. Our hosts Kwaku and Ada didn’t believe two white guys from New Jersey would sit and eat this traditional meal with our fingers. And although Gary, a vegetarian, avoided the meat, this turned out to be one of the best meals we had during our entire trip.
The next day, we left Kwaku and drove 200 miles from the coast to the Muslim village of Alajipapa in Ghana’s plateau region. The majority of the inhabitants here are subsistence farmers tending the land of the local king, and sharing the produce with him. This system of sharecropping is still the harsh reality for many of the rural inhabitants of Ghana. Yet it’s also a relatively harmonious arrangement.
It was Friday, the Muslim holy day, and the whole community had just finished their mid-morning prayers. All of the elders came out to greet us. Dressed in their immaculately clean, holy day finery, they were a stark contrast to the poor mud huts, and red clay streets of the village. This was obviously a very poor town, but its people had a tremendous sense of pride and serious hopes for their future. As we discussed their needs and the utility of the bicycles they had received, they said they looked upon bicycles as progress, and were very interested in receiving more. The bikes were making their lives more productive. Like those in Kwaku’s village, here too, the mobility of cycling helps them move much more produce than walking. The bikes they have are used collectively by the adults in the community. Ideally, they’d each have their own bike.
As we moved across the countryside down to Cape Coast and then back inland to Kumasi, the royal city of the Asanti Kings, we made many stops to visit our bicycles and their new owners. One such encounter was in the town of Asuman Kumansu. To get there, we drove through miles of oil palm groves and coco tree orchards—coco production for chocolate is a major cash crop—and arrived at three houses, where luckily, the owner of one of our bicycles was at home. His bike was an immaculate gray Schwinn. I knew it came through our system because there was a sticker on the seat tube advertising Jay’s Bike Shop in Westfield, New Jersey. As they do every year, the Westfield Rotary Club held a bike collection last September. Did the original owner of this bike ever imagine it would become the major means of transportation for a poor family in the middle of the Asanti highlands of Ghana?
For me this is what Pedals for Progress represents. We are the link between donors in the United States who want to help the poor of the developing world. Seeing the sticker for Jay’s Bike Shop brought that idea home to me loud and clear. Whoever donated that bike with the hope of changing someone’s life for the better did exactly that. And I was looking at the proof.
A little over ten years ago, John Elias, a Peace Corps alum who had been stationed in Jamaica, ran several collections for Pedals for Progress in his hometown in the Colorado Rockies. Doing so nearly crowded himself out of his auto repair business. Storing large numbers of bikes is one of the hazards of recycling used bikes. Since then, John has been a steady contributor to us and a friend of the organization. So, when we had the opportunity to launch a new program in Ewarton, Jamaica, John’s hometown when he was in the Peace Corps, we didn’t hesitate to call on him to help the process. And we’re grateful that he obliged. With John’s help, we were able to get this program on board.
One of the difficulties in establishing any new program overseas is getting that first shipment there. Customs, politics, cultures, languages, international trade laws, and even weather can make for a trying experience in getting a shipping container filled with 450 to 500 bikes to a destination hundreds or even thousands of miles away. In trying to get our first shipment to Jamaica, people wanted the bikes, but local politics and Hurricane Dean caused significant delays.
We had been trying for many years to establish a program in Jamaica. Finally, in August of this year, we shipped our first container to our new partner organization, ECODAC, in Ewarton, Jamaica. As with many of our partner organizations, the first shipment will establish a bike shop. But in this case, it will also be a shop that students use for business training. So, not only will bikes serve the local community by providing clean, affordable, reliable transportation, but these bikes will create a business, a business education model, and a training ground for bicycle mechanics. That’s really getting the most out of P4P bicycles.
Ewarton is a rural community with no public transportation system. Taxis exist, but the fares have continually increased to the point where most people can no longer afford them. So walking is the primary means of mobility. Bikes from Pedals for Progress will change this and significantly improve the lives of many Ewartons. And now that they received their first shipment, the following ones will be much easier to deliver. And Ewarton will soon have many more citizens pedaling instead of walking.
After many a raised eyebrow from friends, family, and even the travel agent who booked my ticket when I said I wanted to go to Moldova, I always found myself explaining why I was going there. And then I also ended up explaining where “there” was. Located in Eastern Europe surrounded by Romania and the Ukraine, Moldova is a small, landlocked country about the size of Maryland with a population of 4 million people. It was once a major agricultural producer for the Soviet Union. I headed there on August 13th, 2007, to meet our Moldovan colleagues and see their organization, Rural 21, firsthand.
Town Square in Stefan Voda
I began the 22-hour trip (11 hours in flight) first flying to Rome, Italy, before arriving the next afternoon in Chisinau (quiche-now) the capital city of Moldova. I was met at the airport there by Andrei Rusanovschi of Rural 21. After communicating only through email over the past two years, I was surprised to find that Andrei was a young man in his 20s, not the older gentleman I pictured for some reason. I was also surprised by his fluency in English as my Romanian is nonexistent.
Leaving the capital, we headed southwest for the town of Stefan Voda, where Rural 21 is located. During the two—hour drive, it was obvious, even with the severe drought this year has brought to Moldova, the worst Since the 1940s, that this country is ideal for farming. On either side of the road were vineyards and endless flat fields of sunflowers, corn, and wheat.
In the early evening, we arrived in Stefan Voda at the Rural 21 office in the center of town. Because director Vitale Rusanovschi, Andrei’s father, is well known—he once worked in the government—and as a result of the work they do, Rural 21 has a significant presence in the community. A small welcoming party greeted me, excited that a P4P representative made the trip to visit their country.
Founded 10 years ago to help where the local and national government wasn’t able to, Rural 21 new comprises an internet café, photography and copying services, and, of course, the bicycle shop. All of these businesses raise money for other community projects, such as a new water system providing 24-hour water service, a new heating system for the Maria Beshu School of Arts, and new sidewalks for the town square.
Slavic and Valeriu in the Rural 21 bike shop
Since 2001, Rural 21 has received 1,800 bicycles from Pedals for Progress, and sold over 1,500 of them in Stefan Voda and surrounding towns. The heart of the Rural 21 bicycle shop is Slavic and his brother Valeriu, who work out of the basement at the Maria Beshu school building. These resident mechanics are there every step of the way. They unload each container, inventory and stock the warehouse, wash and repair each bicycle with care, and restore them to their original glory. With limited space and tools they have created an excellent workshop. They even fashioned homemade repair stands to make their work easier. Eventually, Valeriu and Slavic want to start a mechanic training program to train young people in bicycle repair, and to pass on their passion for cycling. They are also trying to organize a cycling club in Stefan Voda to generate interest in the sport of cycling.
Rural 21 has an advantage over the local bicycle market because the quality of the P4P bikes they receive is high, and they are able to sell them for a very low cost and still cover their expenses. Slavic and Valeriu find that people will often go to the market first and price the new bicycles, then come to the Rural 21 bike shop and purchase a used bike of better quality for less money. Again and again, we find this is a feature of P4P bikes that our partners really appreciate—when we collect bikes, we make sure they are sturdy, reliable, and have many more years of use left in them.
On other trips that I’ve taken to visit our programs, I always compare the public transportation to bicycles and try to determine what people save by owning a bike. I wasn’t able to do this in Moldova, at least not in Stefan Voda, as there is no local transportation infrastructure. There are buses that go to and from the capital, but there is no way to get from town to town. Thus, bicycles are a necessity. I was told this is largely the case throughout the country and worse in the smaller and more remote villages.
In the course of researching this during my visit I had the opportunity to speak with several bicycle owners who were very excited to share their stories with me.
Victor on his way to work
Victor purchased his bicycle in 2006, and works as a carpenter making doors and windows in Stefan Voda. Instead of the 30 minutes it used to take him to get to work, with his bicycle he’s there in four minutes, and gets more work done in a day, earning more leu, the Moldovan monetary unit.
Sergui, an employee at Rural 21, purchased his bicycle three years ago and has been very happy with it. In order to provide for his family, he also has two other jobs, which makes his bicycle essential. He even purchased a child seat so that he can take his son around easily as well.
Slavic and Gabrielle with the bike she earned working in the shop
At 10-years old, Gabrielle is the youngest volunteer at Rural 21. A budding bike mechanic, she helps out Slavic and Valeriu. In return, she received her own bike and is learning bicycle repair. With her new mobility she can get to the shop in just a few minutes where it used to take her over 20 minutes walking.
Inga is a 17-year-old missionary who travels from town to town and uses her bicycle every day to get to the more remote villages she’d otherwise never visit, sometimes pedaling as many as 20 miles a day.
Renell Pettinnelli heading for work
My generous host during my stay, Renell Pettinnelli, arrived at Stefan Voda in the winter of 2006 and waited all winter to purchase her bicycle. Slavic picked out a bike just for her and repaired it. Now Renell easily gets around town to teach English and work with a group that sets women up in business. And of course, she gets to the market regularly and far more easily.
During my visit I spoke with Andrei and Vitale about expanding Rural 21’s bicycle program to become a wholesaler in Moldova. They’ve been speaking with other community organizations in the northern part of the country that are in need of both bicycles and income-generating activities. Because Rural 21 is in the nearest city to the port of Odessa, they’re in a good position to provide this service, and to share their model of success elsewhere in Moldova.
Before my return, I met with the mayor of Stefan Voda, who is very optimistic about what his office and Rural 21 can accomplish during his four-year term. Unlike a lot of town governments, rather than view an organization like Rural 21 as competition or infringing on his domain, this mayor is very supportive of their work. What’s more, he encourages other mayors and politicians to incorporate bikes into their towns, and he even bought two bikes from Rural 21, one so his daughter can ride to school. The mayor and Vitale have worked closely together for many years and are hoping to work together on a larger scale over the next few years.
My visit to Rural 21 was eye opening and inspiring at once. The majority of my travels have been in Latin America, so Eastern Europe was a new experience for me. There is so much need in this small country that I hope we can expand our program in Stefan Voda, and in so doing, help Rural 21 expand theirs.
Moldova is a country filled with hardworking people who have the same needs and wants as every human being—a good job, food to eat, and a place to live. Happily, I saw firsthand that bicycles from Pedals for Progress are playing a big part in helping the community of Stefan Voda achieve these things. More bikes will simply improve more lives there. And helping Rural 21 to grow will serve to improve even more lives throughout the rest of Moldova.
When the Westchester Cycle Club began planning a used bicycle drive for Pedals for Progress, we hoped to collect 150 bikes. That was enough to fill the truck we rented to deliver them to High Bridge, New Jersey, where Pedals for Progress is based. But then we partnered with several houses of worship, a few community groups, and we knew we’d need to rent a second truck. In fact, we needed every inch of three trucks, including Pedals for Progress’ own box truck, to fit the 543 bikes and 10 sewing machines we collected on April 1, 2006.
None of us could’ve guessed when we first started planning that we’d hold the second largest collection in Pedals for Progress’ 15-year history. It’s a credit to the generous residents in the northern suburbs of New York City, who came in droves with their used bikes and checkbooks. Word of mouth, flyers, and Kenneth Edding’s article of the upcoming event in The Journal News generated lots of publicity. Of course, without all the cheerful volunteers who all came together in the sprawling parking lot behind Memorial United Methodist Church, we’d never have been so successful. They gathered at 8 a.m. that morning brimming with energy even though the weather report called for a 50 percent chance of rain. But Reverend Joe Agne assured us that he’d ordered up an ideal day. Soon, we saw patches of blue in the morning sky, and as the sun peeked through, some happy cardinals sang their sweet songs.
We didn’t have to wait long to get cranking. Our biggest donor, the Andrus Children’s Center in Yonkers, had delivered 65 bikes ahead of time. An official from the Children’s Center saw the article about the bike collection and called saying she already had bikes. Initially, she didn’t have a way to get them all to our lot in White Plains, nor did she have $650 to cover the $10-per-bike shipping charge. Sure enough, though, she found a local moving company willing to donate a truck to move them. And even though the Westchester Cycle Club already committed $750 to the event, a plea for additional contributions on the Club’s online message board raised $650 more to cover these bikes.
So when we arrived Saturday morning, 65 bikes were waiting to be addressed. That’s when Pedals for Progress CEO Dave Schweidenback, in his bright orange T-shirt and white bandanna, gave us all a quick lesson in how to process bikes for shipment: remove the pedals and Zip-tie them to the frame, loosen the stem bolts and turn the handlebars parallel to the frame, lube the chain. Once we got started, our first truck arrived with 25 bikes from Camp Olmstead in Cornwall-on-Hudson. This truck also held another 30 that a Westchester Cycle Club member had in her garage. These were donated by members of her synagogue and local school PTA. And we had to make a second trip to her house to retrieve 40 more bikes, including 20 donated by a local police department, which had cleaned out a storage room crammed with abandoned bikes. The PBA also kicked in $200 to help cover shipping costs.
Finally, Dave Schweidenback provided a valuable lesson in packing a truck to the gills with bikes. Bikes were put in side-by-side alternating front wheel forward then rear wheel forward. With the handlebars turned parallel to the frames, the bikes were flat enough to fit about 15 in the width of the truck. Once a row was complete a sheet of plywood was laid on top of the bikes and another row was stacked on top of the first. When all was done and loaded, the trucks were packed so tight there was barely enough space left to fit the buckets of tools.
As we worked on filling the last truck, Reverend Agne’s weather guarantee dissolved in a deluge that soaked the volunteers in a surprisingly warm spring rain. No matter. We filled the truck, and by 1:45 p.m., our second team of drivers was on their way to New Jersey. That’s how we collected, processed, packed and delivered 543 bikes. There had been a job for everyone—a seven-year-old wheeled processed bikes for loading, teens earning community-service credits for high school packed the trucks, and senior citizens loosened pedals and bolts that hadn’t seen a wrench in decades. Finally, at a little after 6:00 p.m., our second truck returned from Jersey concluding a long but satisfying day.
In retrospect, it seems like we only touched the surface as we mined our region’s garages and basements for used bikes. We had 245 individuals bring 433 bikes. Three organizations brought an additional 110. Yet thousands of households are within a 20-mile radius of our collection site, and nearly every household has at least one unwanted bike collecting dust in a garage or basement. We just know there are more bikes for Pedals for Progress out there. There has to be. We’ll get those next year.
Donate bicycles and sewing machines to developing countries
Consult-Nord, a local Moldovan NGO established to promote local economic development in Pelinia, saw the potential results that Pedals for Progress’s bicycles and sewing machines could provide and requested to become a partner. Consult-Nord started selling bicycles this winter after receiving a shipment in late December of 2008. The good quality, affordable bicycles are now available at a shop set up by Consult-Nord, offer numerous opportunities to villagers that otherwise would be inaccessible to them.
