Among other collections, bikes for this shipment are supplied from Scout Justin Frazier, St. Josephs Catholic Community and Wesley Freedom United Methodist Church (Eldersburg, MD), REI Timonium, the International Financial Institutions (World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Inter-American Development Bank).

The specific results in bike terms:

· 6 bikes and LOTs of valuable spare parts and accessories, and several potentially significant contacts, at Bike Virginia in Charlottesville—many thanks to Craig Annear for coordinating this Friday evening event;

· 74 bikes at Church of the Saviour in Charlottesville—many thanks to Margaret Hughes for coordinating this Saturday morning event;

· 126 bikes at the Warrenton Community Center, hosted by the Warrenton Rotary Club—many thanks to Diane Markva for coordinating this (what turned out to be an) ALL-DAY Saturday event.

That things held together owed to your sustained participation.

Margaret got the word out in Charlottesville, and her many friends (including Ducy and others) joined her. However, I don’t think we would have finished that morning had not Norm Oliver and his son Jordan come early and stayed late, processing and loading bikes.

Similarly, in Warrenton, Rotarians George and Powell, and teens Mike and Kevin, came a little after 2 p.m. at the collection site, and finished the processing, “tweaking” the bikes so that they became as compacted as possible, enabling us to get all the usable bikes into the truck.

Ending the day, I began to unload the truck a few minutes before 5 pm. Phil Loar and Donna Davis met me, and we were soon joined by four others, including Robert Goo, Michael Lemon and Steve from Bikes@Vienna bike shop, and a friend. Working as a team, we fully unloaded the truck in two hours, leaving the storage trailers in better shape than I’ve seen them in a while.

Thank you again,

Keith Oberg
Director

To view the full list, visit http://planetsave.com/blog/2009/05/12/80-environmental-organizations-to-follow-on-twitter/

Read the full article here: http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20090507/NEWS01/905070354/1006/Recycled+bicycles+bound+for+trip+around+the+world

We are doing well with the bicycles and there is one lady who left our center with tears of joy. We gave her a sewing machine and bicycle for his 17-year-old son studying at Jinja Secondary School who has actually been walking a long distance to school. Her name is Kevin Okoth, an ex-convict who benefited from the Peer Prisoners Scheme Project in Kirinya Prison. Her story is thrilling as well as many other interesting stories that we are compiling. We shall soon finalise and send the report. This has been our best shipment with a number of bicycles in excellent form and honestly, all has gone well.

—

In another note, here’s a unique photo taken at the Otterbein collection:

United States of America (Press Release) May 1, 2009 –
Hagerstown, MD – Saturday, April 25th, Bikes for the World broke its organization’s previous record by collecting more bicycles at a single-site collection than ever before. The collection drive at the Otterbein Methodist Church brought in 391 bikes, which will be distributed to Goodwill Industries of Panama, Londor Enterprises in conjunction with the Ministry of Education and the Peace Corps in Liberia, and Fundacion Integral Campesina (FINCA Costa Rica). Upon arrival, these bicycles will be used as a means of transportation for work, school, and health services.

Over the course of the weekend, Bikes for the World received 735 bicycles from collection drives in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Its volunteers were crucial to the process, preparing bicycles and loading them into trucks for shipping overseas. The bicycles will be transported overseas beginning this weekend.
source: FPR

Bikes for the World is a nonprofit organization that rescues thousands of unwanted bicycles at community events throughout the lower mid-Atlantic region. The bikes are shipped to underprivileged communities overseas where they can transform lives by facilitating transportation to work, school, and health services. In 2008, Bikes for the World collected and donated more than 10,000 bicycles to non-profit programs in six countries in Africa and the Caribbean Basin.

To see the original article, click here.

Special recognition goes to Cindy Brown, Mike Johnston, and the congregation at Hagerstown’s Otterbein United Methodist Church, where 391 bikes were donated on Saturday, and to Bikes for the World volunteer and Hagerstown resident Phil Ruth, who oversaw the loading of two 24’ trucks at the Otterbein collection and brought the bikes down to our DC storage sites on successive days. Saturday’s event in Hagerstown is the largest one-day single-site collection in Bikes for the World history. 391 people will have affordable transportation and be able t improve their lives in proportion to their own efforts, thanks to the Hagerstown community’s generosity and efforts! Great job!

The other collections on Saturday were also highly successful and benefited a proportional number of individuals, their families, and communities. Kudos to Ed Wallace and the Potomac Rotary Club and Wootton High School Interact Club in Rockville (102 bikes); to Kathy Allan and the City of Falls Church Recycling Office (76 bikes); and to Sue Cohn, George West, GDS student Conan, and others at Georgetown Day School (131 bikes). BfW volunteers including Jerry Rogers, Peter and Ellen Berty, George Tyler and Hellen Gelband, Tankewa Bournes (and her mother), and Craig Annear helped prep and load the bikes at these collections, reinforcing the work of each sponsor’s volunteers.

That’s just the collection and processing end of Saturday’s efforts. On the receiving end, Saturday proved to be a major challenge to Bikes for the World volunteers and our capacity to absorb this unexpectedly large influx of donations. Nevertheless, we managed to bring in and unload an initial truck containing 207 of the bike donations from Hagerstown, and all the bikes from Wootton, Falls Church, and GDS, thanks to the quality compaction efforts at the collection sites and the off-loading efforts of BfW volunteers Keith Adams, Craig Annear, Peter Berty, Jimmy Hall, Jerry Rogers, Phil Ruth, Harvey Sachs, and Harrison Schutzer. I very much appreciate the efforts of Jimmy, Craig, Peter, and Jerry, who stayed well beyond their initial commitment; and of Keith, Harvey, and Harrison, wh0 responded on short notice to an emergency appeal for assistance.

On Sunday, we brought the weekend to a successful close collecting another 35 bikes at our eighth annual collection at St Andrew’s Church in Clifton—thanks in particular to Ed Rollins, Joseph Marter, and Mike ?), and subsequently unloading a second truck of 184 bikes from Hagerstown. Sunday’s intake was unloaded at our new storage site in Twinbrook/Rockville, as our primary storage site at Tysons was filled close to capacity following Saturday’s unloading.

Taking advantage of this record inflow, we will ship this weekend and next, to two of the following: Goodwill Industries of Panama, Londor Enterprises in conjunction with the Ministry of Education and the Peace Corps in Liberia, and Fundacion Integral Campesina (FINCA Costa Rica). We will load at Tysons Friday and Saturday mornings. All are welcome to participate or witness.

Thanks again. It bears repeating that 735 bikes will benefit 735 individuals–allowing each to make more productive use of his/her time for work and study. With each individual benefited, a family will also be benefited. Also benefiting will be the bike mechanics readying these bikes for service, and the non-profit programs channeling the bikes.

-Keith

Otterbein United Methodist Church collection

Herald-Mail article