From time to time, Pedals for Progress likes to give out its prestigious Pedal Wrench of the Year Award to volunteers who, through outstanding individual and group effort, have collected large numbers of bicycles for us to ship overseas. This year we are pleased to have three great honorees. In 2010, P4P would like to honor (from left to right) Warren Rorden, Henry Hansen, and Gerry Agasar.

A significant amount of our annual bicycle volume is collected by Rotary Clubs—over 35 percent of our bikes pass through the hands of Rotarians. These three men are the coordinators for the P4P projects of their individual clubs; each of them has been consistently running collections on behalf of P4P for over a decade. Each of them have led their clubs to collect well in excess of a hundred bikes for us every one of those years. It’s a fantastic accomplishment, one that has required a great deal of effort for them individually, as well as for their clubs.

by Jackie Johnson
Spring 2011 InGear

I was prompted to call Pedals for Progress in September of 2002 after I read a small article in Hope Magazine (long since out of business). The article told the story of Dave Schweidenback launching Pedals for Progress following his experience in the Peace Corps and referenced the 57,000 bicycles that had, at that point, been shipped to partners in sixteen countries. This was a year after the 9/11 attacks and our nation was on the verge of war. I felt a burning need to do something positive and meaningful, ideally involving my husband and two children (who were then 10 and 12 years old). The article so inspired me that I immediately called Pedals for Progress and said I wanted to organize a bike collection in northwestern Connecticut, where I live. Even though Pedals had never held a collection so far from their base in High Bridge, New Jersey, their response was positive.

Because the fall collection season was already underway, I was encouraged to organize my collection the following spring. But I felt I had to act immediately. I ultimately spoke to Dave and explained why I couldn’t wait until spring. He was reluctantly convinced and our first Pedals for Progress collection was held at Holcomb Farm, an arts and environmental center, in Granby, CT, on December 7, 2002. An enthusiastic group of volunteers collected and processed a very chilly 42 bikes that day. They are still the core group of volunteers who have shown up every year since.

May of 2011 (yes, we’ve since switched to spring) will mark our 10th annual collection and will bring our count to over 1500 bikes collected. It would never have been possible without our amazing bike-processing guru/crew leader Tony King, Bruce and Bobbi Sullivan, who always remember to bring everything I forget, and the King and Johnson families.

Over the years, we’ve added many new regular volunteers—the Mayock Family, the Desiderato/Raggio Family and groups of students interested in community service. Sometimes people just happen to see what we’re doing and stay on to help. The greatest joy is that a bike collection truly is an inclusive community event. Anyone at any age can take part, and donors and volunteers alike share in the joy of knowing they’re making a difference in the lives of others. And often the stories donors tell us about the “lives” of the donated bikes are amazing!

Frequently these days, when I’m in the Center (a New England term for downtown) of our small town, someone stops me to ask when the next bike collection is. I feel so fortunate to have noticed that article back in 2002. While we’re a few hours away from High Bridge by car and much farther still from many of the places our donated bicycles have gone, Granby, Connecticut, is blessed to have a thriving Pedals for Progress community.

by Tim Weitzel
Fall 2010 InGear

Hello to everyone from the Heartland of America—Dubuque, Iowa to be exact. Dubuque is an old river town of about 62,000 people situated on the banks of the Mississippi River. I suppose many of you would think of Iowa as flat as a pancake, but Dubuque’s topography is more similar to San Francisco than to the Great Plains.

I first talked to Dave Schweidenback four years ago. In 2006, after roughly five years of “thinking about it,” I decided to try in some small way to “help someone.” My daughter, Erica, had returned from Haiti in 2002 with horrific stories of poverty and the immense transportation problems of that island. Being an avid road bicyclist, I had 3 or 4 “extra” bikes in my garage. My plan was to collect a few more and send them to a Catholic missionary in Port au Paix. I now laugh at how naïve I was. By the time I looked up, I had 30 bikes in my garage with no idea what to do next. Over coffee, a good friend of mine said simply, “Why don’t you check the internet? Somebody is probably already doing that.” And of course they were!

I called a phone number at Pedals for Progress and some guy named Dave answered. We talked for a long time, and though I wasn’t sure he liked me, I needed to get rid of “my bikes.” My next problems were determining how I would get them to New Jersey and how much would I have to pay. I kind of remember Dave saying something about $10.00 a bike, which meant something like $300.00, plus shipping to New Jersey. I soon learned the economics of philanthropy! But, like super heroes, Ding Bell, Jack Blosch, John Markham, Paul Schultz, Tim Hodge, the Dubuque Noon Optimists, the Dubuque Bike Club, and Joe Bitter burst onto the scene. Almost overnight, it seems now, I went from a one-man show to a well oiled, yet still somewhat unorganized, group of dedicated bike collectors.

We still scramble for money, but things always seem to work out. We often talk and dream about how to collect more bikes or how to get them to New Jersey and beyond more efficiently. I see no turning back now. Our immediate goal is to continue to organize and plan for future collections.

When Dave asked me to write this article about Pedals for Progress presence in Dubuque, I was proud, humbled, and a bit surprised. Proud, because I really believe we have helped lift families out of poverty and made their lives a bit easier. Humbled, because I am just a small part of the Dubuque operation: much, much credit goes to the unsung volunteers, the Dubuque Noon Optimists, Dubuque Bike Club, Jack Blosch, Ding Bell, and my father, George Weitzel. Surprised, because when I started out four years ago I envisioned collecting 50 bikes at the most. We currently have collected 1663 bikes and I am constantly amazed at the community support we receive. Finally, above all, I am thankful to Dave Schweidenback for trusting someone from half a country away whom he has never met, and to all the donors who continue to bring in their bikes.

by David McKay Wilson
Fall 2006 InGear

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.

by Andra Stam–Taylor
Summer/Fall 1999 InGear

Chase Manhattan Bank is strongly committed to the communities which it serves. As part of a comprehensive corporate philanthropy initiative, one of the ways that Chase displays this commitment is through an annual October event called “Global Days of Service” (GDS). In 1998, 13,000 Chase employees, along with their friends and family, participated in 350 different projects worldwide. According to Chase Chairman Walter Shipley, “The commitment and dedication of our volunteers and their tireless energy to improve the communities in which they live and work inspires us and sets an example worth following.”

I had read about Pedals for Progress and as a Chase employee thought that a bicycle collection was an excellent tie-in with Global Days. Knowing that many GDS projects are done in conjunction with other organizations, I approached the leaders of my Church, the Church of the Holy Spirit, in Lebanon, New Jersey, regarding the possibility of adding this collection to their long list of community service projects. The Church leaders enthusiastically approved the idea, and we decided to make this the first fall project for the Rite-13 youth group, ages 13 and 14. The Youth group was shown the video stressing the mission of P4P and participated in the publicity by putting up posters and mailing posters to other churches. We received permission from Unity Bank in Clinton, New Jersey, to use their parking lot as the site for the collection.

On October 24th, 1998, 14 volunteers had a lot of fun with the project and collected 99 bicycles. Because of the excellent tie-in that P4P has with Chase’s Global Days, an idea was sparked for the 1999 Global Days: “What if Chase had simultaneous bicycle collections in multiple locations gathering used bicycles for P4P?”

Although final plans are still being made, as of press time Chase will be having 5–7 P4P collections during Global Days in at least four states: Delaware, Ohio, New Jersey, and New York. In each of the selected communities, Chase employees will organize, publicize, and staff the event—not to mention donate their used bikes!