BfW's 100,000th Donated Bike Has a New Home

Gerardo Jesús

Gerardo lives at home with his mother, two brothers and one sister in Tempate, a rural community located in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. He graduated with excellent grades from the elementary school in Tempate. Because of this, his teacher helped him obtain a scholarship at a private bilingual high school. This high school is called Educarte and is located in another community called Tamarindo.

The scholarship is assisting his family financially to allow Gerardo to attend this private school. This new school is almost 21 miles from his home in Tempate. Every day, to get to school, Gerardo first has to go to Cartagena, which is 7km, or 4.3 miles, from his home. Then in Cartagena he takes a bus to Tamarindo which is 17 miles from Cartagena.

Thanks to Gerardo's bicycle, he can ride the first four miles from home to take the bus and make it safely to his high school. Without a bike, Gerardo would either need to walk to the bus stop or pay someone to drive him there.

Harvey Ollis with the 100k bike

This 'special' bike delivered to Guanacaste in December from Bikes for the World is helping Gerardo attend this great school, and saves him valuable time he can now use to study. It is also helping his family avoid the high cost of paying for transportation to deliver Gerardo to catch the bus he needs to arrive to school on time.

This red Specialized was Bikes for the World's 100,000th donated bike and was loaded and shipped on November 15, 2014 as part of America Recycles Day festivities. The 100k bike was donated to Gerardo in Costa Rica because he has proven to be a person who works hard to achieve his goals and has been able to provide for his family and ensure their well being.

MLK WEEK of Service

Bikes for the World honored Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a series of community service events across the area. Taking advantage of our warmer warehouse in Arlington, this year we loaded in Virginia rather than our normal location at King Farm in Rockville.

This loading event took place on Saturday January 18th and Monday January 20th. We loaded over 400 bikes along with tons of parts, mostly from DC's Capital Bikeshare program. The container is heading to Panama's Goodwill program where trained mechanics will refurbish the donated bikes and sell them in the storefront. Money from the program supports the bike project as well as the program training disabled individuals in areas such as welding and metal working.

Swing Phi Swing Social Fellowship

Joining us on this two day event were volunteers from NOVA's Meetup Group, the students at Burgundy Farm Country Day School, and members of the Swing Phi Swing Social Fellowship.

A variety of activities marked this MLK Day opportunity. Volunteers focused on organizing the warehouse, sorting parts, processing bikes, taking in bikes, and loading the container for Panama.

CHO bike donation

The Community for Helping Others (CHO) in Fairfax arrived mid-day Saturday with a truck full of donated bikes. CHO joins forces with BfW partner shop Bikes@Vienna to collect bikes every winter to donate to local charities.

Dan Larkins, Director of CHO, collects and fixes bikes every year for beneficiaries in Fairfax that are hand picked by the county as in need of assistance. Larkins hand delivered the surplus to BfW this past weekend. And we have to mention the expert parking job by his driver as he squeezed their truck around our trailer to get to the dock.

Greg Houston Senior VP External Affairs Meridian

On Monday BfW participated in the Meridian International Center's first annual "Warm up DC" Event. Meridian hosted a series of simultaneous events to maximize the outpouring of volunteerism for the benefit of Martha's Table in DC with donated food and clothing for the disadvantaged.

Bikes for the World also benefited, not only from an unseasonably warm day, but from the donation of over 30 bikes from two locations. We were aided in this effort with labor from volunteers from George Washington University, DC Bike Party, Kasper's Cargos, and Burgundy Farm students who were hard at work processing donated bikes at our warehouse.

BfW would like to express special gratitude to Malina Keutel of Meridian for all of her hard work and outreach in support of this successful event.

Endorphin Fitness, Richmond VA

Boots, of Kasper's Cargos, has been working with BfW for several months helping us transport bikes to our warehouses. In fact, just last week, he delivered some of the bikes collected January 11th in Richmond at Endorphin Fitness.

Despite a cold, rainy collection day, Endorphin Fitness collected about 100 bikes for BfW, kicking off the 2014 season in style. This was a first time collection effort for Endorphin Fitness.

Some of the bikes coming from Richmond were included on the Panama trailer loaded during our MLK Day service event. The remaining bikes from Endorphin Fitness and the ones from Meridian will be loaded in February and donated to our Costa Rica partner, FINCA.

Collaborated with John Burg, BfW Board of Directors and Program Committee Chairman