What do these numbers mean? What does a single bike mean? For many North Americans, the power of one bike is a hard concept to grasp.

But not for Uganda’s Mama Alex (see below). For her, a bicycle made the difference between backbreaking labor at subsistence wage, and a decent, independent existence.

Mama Alex isn’t alone:

    * In Costa Rica, William Sandoval commutes to his custodial job in a suburb of San José on a road bike purchased on credit for $20 through Bikes for the World’s local partner, Fundación Integral Campesina. Before, he would pay $36 a month for bus fare. The money he saves helps him provide more for his family every month.

    * In Ghana, Sara Aidor was in high school and a member of a health education and HIV/AIDS awareness group. She learned about bike maintenance in a special clinic and got her discounted bike from the Village Bicycle Project, a long-term Bikes for the World partner. According to Sara, “We have ridden our bikes to lots of local villages to do plays about hygiene, sanitation and health education. The people need to learn more about these things so they do not get sick.”

Your support this past year has enabled Bikes for the World and its overseas partners to help thousands like Mama Alex, William, and Sarah—individuals in disadvantaged situations whose lives are changed through your helping hand. In 2008, Bikes for the World benefited people in seven countries.

Besides Uganda, Costa Rica, and Ghana, we continued shipments to long-standing partner programs in Barbados, Honduras, and Panama. We opened a new partnership in Afghanistan, working through the Lamia Afghan Foundation and the U.S. Air Force, to deliver 40 bikes to street children in Kabul (www.aschiana-foundation.org). And we laid the groundwork for new projects in Liberia, Senegal, and South Africa.

Helping Others, Helping Ourselves

Not all the benefit goes overseas. Those on the giving side of Bikes for the World—people who donate their bicycles, volunteer their time and support the organization with monetary donations—also get a lot in return. The satisfaction of knowing that your old bike is being put to good use is the most basic reward, but it goes well beyond that. The 1,500+ volunteers of all ages who collected and prepped bikes for shipment or loaded containers this past year learned new skills and worked together to accomplish something tangible (and something intangible but not insignificant—a lowered carbon footprint).

Community organizations continue to find sponsoring a bike collection to be a great way to educate, build teamwork, and further their service missions. For their participation, local young people have satisfied Scout, Bar Mitzvah, high school graduation, and other service requirements. On one spring day this past year, the Calvert County (MD) School System mobilized the entire community, collecting 700 usable bikes at four sites and shipping the bulk of the bikes collected directly to the Women Prisoners Support Organisation (www.wpsouganda.org) in Uganda for women like Mama Alex.

In 2008, Bikes for the World completed the first full year of the Rockville Youth Bicycle Project (RYBP), providing opportunities to local young people to earn a bike, ride a bike safely, and earn community service hours required for high school graduation. For their efforts, 37 elementary schoolers and 3 middle and high school students earned reconditioned bikes. More than 2,000 students in 9 local schools took classes on bicycle and pedestrian safety. Nearly 50 more students earned community service hours, prepping bikes for shipping, stripping marginal bikes for useful parts, and loading containers.

Together, we have made Bikes for the World the largest bicycle reuse program in the United States and, as far as we know, the largest in the world. That’s pretty good, but we can do more.

Our Vision for 2009

We have big plans for 2009. With your help, we plan to:

    * Donate more bikes to people like Mama Alex, William, and Sara. To move beyond the 10,000-bike level we need to do several things that will cost a little more money. Currently, our core costs are covered by the funds that individual donors contribute along with each donated bike, and the payment that are made by established overseas partners. But we’re at the breaking point. We can’t easily bring on new partners or run more collections.

    * Establish new program partnerships, especially in Africa, which face significant start-up costs. Your donations enable us to subsidize initial shipping costs to promising new partners, or shipping to expensive destinations, such as inland Africa.

    * Hire additional staff to support our organization’s growth. Currently, our director (me), the RYBP director, and a part-time bookkeeper, are modestly compensated by Bikes for the World. With the addition of a part-time office manager and a part-time driver-warehouseman, we can schedule and support more collections and shipments, while still relying on volunteers for the lion’s share of the labor that supports the effort.

    * Accept more good-quality bicycles, without funding, from institutional sources. These include police impound lots, waste transfer stations, multi-family residences, and bike shops. Donations make it possible to handle more of these bikes, whose potential we have yet to fully exploit.

    * Prepare for the day when we’ll need to pay for expensive storage. We currently enjoy the use of a donated site in Northern Virginia, generously provided by a local commercial development firm. But once ground breaks on the extension of the Metro line to Dulles Airport, we will lose this space. Moving the trailers alone will cost money, and we will likely have expenses like rent and security investments to obtain a good location close to major highways.

All these reasons make your support critical. We can continue to chug along at our current shipment level, all the while dependent on the sacrifice of volunteers and our limited institutional capacity; or we can create a professional, self sustaining core with strong potential. By donating today, you can help us to change the world, one bike at a time.

Sincerely,
Keith Oberg
Director