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1. Recent Events-471 Bikes to Barbados, Record-Setting One-Day NC Collection 2. Costa Rican Beneficiary - Gabriel the bike shop owner 3. Help Needed this Saturday April 5 to Collect & Load for Costa Rica!!!!
Recent Events-471 Bikes to Barbados, Record-Setting One-Day NC CollectionWhat a week! Taking advantage of local schools spring break, BfW staff and volunteers worked over three days with a dozen local teens, prepping bikes, stripping useful parts from junk bikes, and loading 471 bikes into a container destined for the Pinelands Creative Workshop. PCW is a youth and community development program in the Pinelands public housing section of Bridgetown, Barbados. The bikes will support an on-going youth enterprise program, provide affordable transport to low-income Barbadians, and generate income for Pinelands including a performing arts program serving young people and a Meals on Wheels program serving the elderly. Meanwhile, the kids here in Rockville earned credit toward their 75-hour "student service learning" requirement for high school graduation, while learning about bike mechanics, reuse opportunities, and the impact of bicycles on people overseas. On Saturday, adult volunteers in Chapel Hill North Carolina and Frederick MD completed highly-successful collections in their respective communities-315 bikes in Chapel Hill (a new one-day record, we think) and 201 in Frederick (a record for the third-year sponsor, the Carroll Creek Rotary Club). Many thanks to former steering committee member Merywen (Wenny) Wigley, Kevin Magill, and Dan Gatti, who led the North Carolina event, and steering committee Craig Annear, who drove from Northern Virginia on Friday in a 24' truck and brought back 209 bikes late Saturday night. Kudos to the crew which unloaded Craig in the dark at our un-electrified Tysons storage site-Jerry Rogers, Phil Ruth, B.J. Sadoff, and me. Everybody got home by mid-night (I think). And let's not overlook congratulating and thanking the Frederick folks-Zoltan and Aubrie Nagy in particular-for the not-too-shabby Maryland performance. The bikes collected at these two events are slated to go to Costa Rica shortly (see 3. below).
Costa Rican Beneficiary-Gabriel the bike shop owner Gabriel, a twenty-something sole proprietor of a bike sales, service, and rental business serving tourists and his community, is an example of the entrepreneurial initiative supported by Bikes for the World. Gabriel was introduced to Bikes for the World through the Fundación Integral Campesina (FINCA Costa Rica), a private non-profit agency and Bikes for the World partner that provides technical assistance and capital to groups of micro-businesspeople in rural areas of this Central American country. Gabriel is a member of the group in Bahía Ballena (Whale Bay), a small Pacific coastal town on the Osa Peninsula adjacent to the internationally-recognized Corcovado National Park. From the first two Bikes for the World shipments, Gabriel received capital in the form of 30 bicycles to establish and expand his business. His shop now offers bike sales, repair, and rental, as well as guided bike tours along the beach and in the countryside. Most recently, Gabriel received one of two bicycle trailers sent by Bikes for the World, which he uses to transport a small cooler and sell cold drinks and fruit on his tours and on the nearby beach. All capital is provided in the form of a loan, and expected to be repaid. Gabriel is a good example of the positive entrepreneurial impact of the program. Gabriel quit a boring job cleaning rooms in a local hotel, building on earlier employment as a bike mechanic in a neighboring town, and is now an independent, self-directed businessman in the process of hiring and training others. Gabriel's business is particularly dynamic owing to the proximity of the National Park, a center of biodiversity which is attracting increasing numbers of international eco-tourists. In less than a year, Gabriel has achieved much success. Now, he has asked FINCA for seven tandem bicycles, to expand his services, hire staff, and fill a growing niche in the local eco-tourism industry.
Help Needed this Saturday (April 5) to Collect and Load Bikes for Costa Rica We need help this Saturday! We will be collecting bikes at four locations in DC (Capitol Hill), Arlington (Pentagon City), Fairfax (Fairfax Circle), and Rockville, as well as loading a container at our Tysons storage site, and invite readers/supporters to come out to help and see what we do. No prior experience required! Let Keith know (
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) that you are interested in helping out, and where. Visit www.bikesfortheworld.org for collection locations. We are especially looking for someone to help at the Arlington/Pentagon Row Hudson Trail Outfitters from 12 noon to 2 pm (some experience would be helpful), and a pair to staff the collection at the Fairfax Hudson Trail Outfitters from 10 am - 2 pm, as well as multiple volunteers to comprise the loading crew at Tysons, which will work from 9 am to as late as 5 pm. Clothes that can get dirty, and closed shoes, are best in all cases, but work is available for all abilities and degrees of dirt tolerance. If you can't come this weekend, please promise yourself (and us) that you will come one of the following weekends, as the next two months represent the most intense period of the year, and we expect to ship more than 2,000 bikes between now and the end of May. We can't do it without your help.
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