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Bicycle Redistribution
BIKES TO SEATTLE
FareStart, a restaurant-jobs training program that helps homeless adults turn their lives around, receives a Bike Works bike for each graduate.
Additionally, we donate extensively to Treehouse, a resource center for foster families.
If you are a nonprofit or social-service agency in King County and you would like to request a bicycle donation for a member or client of your organization, please click here to download a bicycle-donation request form.
BIKES TO COMMUNITIES ABROAD
Bike Works has sent over 4,000 bikes and a significant number of parts to Ghana, West Africa, in the last 10 years. As part of our mission to do more than just speak about the social and environmental costs of increasing global motorization, we provide curriculum and material resources for transportation alternatives locally and globally. Every year since 1998 we have partnered with another non-profit organization based out of Moscow, Idaho, called the Village Bicycle Project (VBP), which is a nonprofit and which came about in response to a critical lack of basic reliable, affordable transport for millions of Africans. When the only other choice is walking, bicycles are a tool of development, improving access to farms, market, jobs, schools, and health care.
A nonprofit based in the USA, VBP is the largest receiver and distributor of Bike Works bikes. VBP is working with two Ghanaian businesses to bring the bikes through customs and to distribute them. The Ghanaian companies provide workshops wherein 20 participants at a time take a daylong training on bike maintenance and are then eligible to purchase a bicycle for half the market rate for used bikes. The two Ghanaian companies also sell a portion of each shipment to local bicycle micro-enterprises. In essence, VBP and their Ghanaian counterparts have established a wholesale distributor network for used bikes and parts, a critical link in the transportation nexus for Ghana's growing number of working-poor cyclists. VBP also ships low-cost specialty bicycle tools to support the growing structure of small bike businesses and do-it-your-selfers.
VBP provides donated used bikes, new tools, and repair training, building the capacity of bicycles to sustainably become the transport mode of choice for thousands of Africans, where over 99 percent of the population cannot afford cars.
Once in Ghana, many of our bikes are sold at market, and proceeds cover the costs of shipping. The rest are taken to villages, where the Village Bicycle Project offers repair workshops, then sells bikes to participants for half the normal price. This way, the new owners are invested in cycling and empowered to take care of their ride. VBP prioritizes working with farmers, teachers, aid workers, and micro-businesses.
Here is a little tale of just one of the bikes we sent on its way to Ghana:
Sara Aidor is a high school student and a member of the Abura Keep Fit Club, a health education and HIV/AIDS awareness group.
"I love my new bike," says Sara. "It's blue which is my favorite colour. We have ridden our bikes to lots of local villages to do plays about hygiene/sanitation and health education. The people need to learn more about these things so they do not get sick. You do good work. Can we have more bikes soon?"
Bike Works was the first organization to answer the VBP's call for used bikes for Ghana and has been a source of bikes and volunteers ever since. Thanks to the bountiful supply of bikes in the Northwest, we now have collections twice a year: April and September.
Volunteer Donna Sakson shared this quote with us:
"You know, bicycles won't save the world," a friend told me over dinner the other evening. Maybe not, but they can make a big difference, and Bike Works, the Village Bicycle Project, and their volunteers are proving that every day.
Bike Works is accepting donations for the next shipment-click here to learn more about how to donate your bike.
Visit VBP's website for more info.
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