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Featured DONORS

Did you know that Bikes for the World relies heavily on the generosity of our donors to keep us on track to meet our mission? Both in terms of donated items, obviously, but also financially. In fact, BfW operates largely on individual donations, many of which come in during this time of year.

Leading up to our 20th anniversary celebration in October, we were tracking our bike donations closely all summer. It was starting to look like we were going to hit 200,000 bikes donated in the middle of August. So after our container loading to Rwanda on August 7th we started keeping an eye on donations.

During one of our Thursday night drop off times, Richard Delridge donated this very nice Cannondale. We figured this might be the 200,000th bike donated so we got its story. Richard was an avid cyclist and used this bike on many rides. After a recent knee replacement he decided to transition into a more stable bike, with wider tires and a more comfortable handlebar set up. 

The donated Cannondale was loaded for Costa Rica at the end of August and was delivered to our partner program MiBici in October. The bike wound up with Rachel who will use it to commute to work.

During that August container loading, we were including about a dozen sewing machines for the same project. Costa Rica receives a majority of our sewing machines which are very beneficial in this micro-finance focused project.

Local partner Otterbein United Methodist Church is one of our biggest suppliers of donated sewing machines. One of their longest serving collection managers Cindy Brown was planning to join us for the 200,000th bike donation celebration and when we took a look at our sewing machine donations we realized this same shipment would include the 1,000th sewing machine donated. So we asked Cindy to bring one along.

Becky Fritts donated that milestone machine. Becky is  a member of Otterbein United Methodist Church and we were honored to include her old sewing machine in our shipment. It was delivered to its new owner Maria in October. Her first job was to make a tablecloth for her neighbor who had recently purchased a new table. She is now sewing items to raise income to support her family in Costa Rica.

1,000 Sewing Machines Donated
Joseth Antonio Hondoy Hernandez