Our 28th spring collection season is well underway. We have a number of new collection sponsors and a number of new international partners. In my last message I spoke of having completed our goals in communities such as Rivas, Nicaragua, having saturated the area with bicycles. That has created the opportunity to open new programs in new countries.

In fiscal 2019 we have already resupplied our now-oldest programs: in 1999 we first shipped to FIDESMA in Guatemala with a grant from the New England Bio Labs Foundation, and in 2010 we first shipped to PASS/Ecovolis in Albania with a grant from the Clif Bar Family Foundation and the Soros Foundation. We have been able to create a new bicycle and sewing machine partnership with The Norbert and Friends Foundation in Arusha, Tanzania, thanks to the Jos Claerbout Family and William and Helen Mazar Foundation. Peace Maker Community Development Center in Lagos, Nigeria, should have a container of bikes floating towards them by the time you read this letter.

This year we resupplied Albania, Guatemala, and the new Tanzanian project with sewing machines. We will also be sending sewing machines in both of the bicycle shipments for Nigeria and Gambia. Independently, with a grant from the Dewan Foundation, we have made sewing-machine-only shipments: the first to resupply the Mityana Open Troop Foundation in Mityana, Uganda, with 72 more sewing machines, bringing their total to 207, and the second to open a new relationship with a shipment of 72 sewing machines to Association Défi et Révolution de la Vie Rurale in Togo. Togo, Nigeria, and Gambia are all new countries for Pedals for Progress and Sewing Peace.

Creating a new successful distribution point overseas, simply described, is starting a new business. Starting a new business takes investment. Pedals for Progress and Sewing Peace have been extremely successful in identifying the most motivated, dedicated and hard-working partners worldwide. Indeed our overseas partners, through their efforts, make P4P/SP so uniquely successful. From here in New Jersey we supply them with the pieces, but it is up to our international partners to put those pieces together to become a long-term distributor such as FIDESMA in Guatemala or PASS/Ecovolis in Albania. When they are successful and can take multiple shipments, there are greater economies of scale and experience. Our final success is when that bicycle or sewing machine is in the hands of a local customer. It is crucial to our success to have a fair and equitable distributor receiving our product overseas.

Thank you to all the individual donors as well as our essential corporate and foundation donors for allowing us the opportunity to continue on our mission to empower sustainable economic development by recycling bicycles and sewing machines from the U.S. and shipping them to motivated people in the developing world. We literally can not do it without you!