Meet Brenda Geist: Featured Volunteer

If you look around in a crowd Brenda won't necessarily stand out. She's doesn't volunteer for recognition or to stand around. She's there to work. And good luck trying to slow her down.

The whole group is like that. Brenda is part of an over 40s Meet Up group out of Fairfax which regularly volunteers with Bikes for the World. Sometimes we see the same familiar faces time and time again and every now and again we see a new one.

Brenda organizes all of that for us. All we need to do is show up and keep them busy...which sometimes is hard enough. Just last year, the NOVA MeetUp group joined us maybe 4 or 5 times to help load, process, and sort bikes in the warehouse.

Some of them bring their own tools and they jump right in processing bikes as soon as they get there. They are quick to mentor others and do whatever is needed...as long as we keep them moving. You really couldn't ask for better volunteers.

Brenda is always looking to schedule the group to come back to the warehouse. If she hasn't heard from us in a while she'll reach out to us and offer to help in any way we need.

The MeetUp group exists as a community service volunteer group. They distribute food to those in need, help in thrift stores, work in the parks...really anything and everything. They socialize, meet new people, have some fun, and make a global impact in the process.

This group has joined us in Springfield, Lorton, and both warehouses in Arlington. In fact, they helped us clean out and close Springfield, Lorton, and 1200 Eads. They have impacted lives in Ghana, Costa Rica, Panama, and El Salvador. Below we tracked the same container they help load in Springfield VA to its arrival in Accra Ghana.

Brenda even helped us deliver a strider bike to a young boy in Springfield who left his too close to the curb on trash day. When we heard the story about how the trash truck took his bike away, we found one in the warehouse that we wanted the boy to have. Brenda delivered it for us and made his day.

Brenda had loaded bikes, turned a hundred handlebars, removed twice as many pedals, unloaded bikes, stacked bikes...she even hosted a collection in her neighborhood.

Most of all, Brenda has introduced many people to Bikes for the World: volunteers, donors, and more importantly supporters. Just this past year, the MeetUp group has helped us load about 20% of the containers we donated in 2014. They were with us when we loaded number 100,000 and we hope to see them a lot on our way to 200k!