Set To Jet

A special THANK YOU to JetBlue who issued Bikes for the World a couple travel vouchers that allowed us to visit Costa Rica and helped us bring FINCA Costa Rica's executive director, Luis Jimenez, to DC last week.

Luis Jimenez joined us in DC this week to help us celebrate our 100,000th donated bike to be loaded  on November 15th. Luis will join us for the loading as well as give a presentation about how our bikes are changing lives in Costa Rica.

The 100,000th bike will be donated to FINCA Costa Rica, arriving just in time for Christmas.

When we offered the option of touring the city by bike Luis was all for it. The temperature the day before he arrived was in the 70s. By Thursday it had dipped into the 40s.

Luis came armed with a winter coat and hat but still needed to borrow some warmer gloves for the ride. The typical average temperature in Costa Rica stays above 70 degrees.

Yvette and Taylor were joined by board member Rich Robinson for the bike tour of DC. We hit many of the Washington DC landmarks and Rich added interesting facts about the city along the way.

 The ride was a big contrast to the one we did just two months earlier when Yvette met Keith and Kaila in Costa Rica courtesy JetBlue. Then, Yvette and Luis joined some of the BfW beneficiaries for a ride through the community in sweltering humid temperatures.

Back in DC, Luis had asked Taylor about the first snowfall. It was THAT cold. And sure enough when we arrived back at the warehouse a few flakes actually fell.

 Having Luis on hand for the 100k celebration is certainly a treat. Even better, guess who showed up for the first night loading of the container....the JetBlue Crew!

Recruited by loyal BfW volunteer Phil Loar, who works at JetBlue, four JetBlue employees showed up to help us start this milestone container.

Both Yvette and Luis were on hand to personally thank the crew for helping us visit DC and Costa Rica. The travel vouchers allowed us to see how the container is packed and how the bikes are received overseas. This will help us improve our shipments in the future.

And we are looking forward to learning more about the program tomorrow when Microsoft hosts us in Fashion Centre just behind our warehouse.

You can see all the photos from Luis's bike tour of DC on Facebook.

Post by Bikes for the World.