Bikes for the World: A Fact Sheet

What is Bikes for the World?

Bikes for the World is a simple, people-centered project that rescues unwanted bicycles

wasting away in American storage areas, and puts them to productive use overseas.

Beginning in 1995 as part of a New Jersey-based bicycle recycling program, this simple but powerful idea has mobilized hundreds of Washington DC-Baltimore area volunteers to collect and ship 34,000 used bicycles, plus many thousands of dollars of used and new spare parts and accessories, to programs helping low-income people overseas earn more income, get to school, learn business management and bike mechanic skills, and access health services. 

In January 2005, the Washington-Baltimore participants in this regional bicycle recycling program established Bikes for the World as a locally-focused sponsored project of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA).  WABA is a nonprofit professionally-run educational and advocacy organization founded in 1972, overseen by an unpaid volunteer board, and with a current membership of 7,000 individuals.  WABA provides legal and administrative support and guidance to BfW’s full-time volunteer director and advisory board.  BfW comprises some 400 individual volunteers and more than 70 community organizations representing a broad spectrum of faiths and civic orientations.

How can I support this program? The principal means by which Bikes for the World obtains bicycles, and a significant source of income, is the used bicycle collection.  A typical collection is a one-time event, held on a Saturday or Sunday morning or afternoon in the spring or fall, and sponsored by a local service organization.  Local collections make it convenient for the public to bring unwanted bicycles.  The sponsor’s volunteers (generally unskilled) compact donated bikes for storage and shipping.  They remove pedals and tie them to the frame, turn handlebars, lower seats, and remove baskets.  Bikes are then ready for shipping and overseas reassembly.  Each bicycle donor is asked to contribute a minimum $10 to defray shipping costs (the average cost to get a bike collected, shipped, reconditioned, and accessorized is estimated to be over $20—BfW raises the remaining funds elsewhere).  A typical collection sponsor may be a church or synagogue, a Rotary or Jaycee club, a school or service learning program, a youth group including Boy and Girl Scout troops, an environmental club, a business, or a municipal recycling program.  A well-publicized collection can easily net 50 to 150 bicycles. BfW provides a detailed written guide to collection sponsors, along with literature, tools, and supplies.

Who has Bikes for the World worked with? BfW is a new entity, formally established January 2005.  It undertook 71 collection events in its first year, with 66 local organizations and jurisdictions.  Among the organizations supporting Bikes for the World are St. Mary’s Catholic Church (Burke VA), Trinity United Methodist Church (Alexandria VA), Sidwell Friends School, Herndon (VA) Friends Meeting, Langley Hill Friends Meeting (Langley, VA), Tikvat Israel Congregation (Rockville MD), West Springfield (VA) Rotary Club and 11 other area Rotary clubs, Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment/Arlington County Division of Solid Waste, and the Recycling Offices of Fairfax County (VA) and the Cities of Falls Church (VA) and Alexandria (VA).  Local businesses have donated trailers and sites for bicycle storage.  Many area bike dealers accept donated bicycles on behalf of Bikes for the World.

What happens to the bicycles overseas, and why are they valuable? Overseas charities recondition BfW-donated bicycles, and subsequently sell them at cost, often on credit, to low-income people in need of affordable transportation.  In these countries, bicycles are utilitarian rather than recreational, providing essential transportation to work, school, and social services.  Because new bicycles are relatively expensive – they are generally imported and heavily taxed, markets are small and inefficient, and average incomes are low – most poor people walk.  Further, because scarce bikes are used productively and are relatively expensive, additional jobs are created repairing and maintaining them.

Who are Bikes for the World’s partners overseas? To save costs and ensure integrity, typical partners overseas include affiliates and partners of internationally-recognized networks and institutions, including the Peace Corps, Goodwill, Rotary International, and the Salesian Missions.  Bikes for the World made its initial shipment of bicycles to Honduras in late January 2005, in collaboration with Art for Humanity, a Virginia-based charity, and during its first year donated more than 5,601 bicycles to selected nonprofit agencies in seven countries in Africa, Latin America, and other regions of the developing world, including Sri Lanka (for tsunami recovery), Guatemala, Panama, and Ghana.  Under a predecessor program, another 28,000 bikes collected in the Washington DC-Baltimore region went to Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Barbados, Eritrea, Ghana, Namibia, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Fiji, and Pakistan.

Why should our community sponsor a bicycle collection? Sponsoring a Bikes for the World bike collection is fun, productive, and satisfying, offering opportunities for:

§         helping the poor in other countries become more productive

§         reducing waste in the United States

§         getting your church or organization’s name out in the local community

§         building a team

§         promoting personal growth, and

§         stimulating reflection about business, economics, and transportation policy.

For further information on Bikes for the World, see its web site at www.bikesfortheworld.org or contact Keith Oberg at 703-525-0931, koberg at verizon dot net (substitute appropriately for the punctuation)