collection event Saturday.
On Tuesday I shared the story of Jenny Leonard, the Portland resident who is on a mission to help schoolkids in rural South Africa get to school by bike. She met many of them while studying abroad and was shocked to find out they walked several hours each way to school due to lack of any other method of transportation.
Yesterday, Leonard collected 120 used bikes. That’s great, but it’s about 200 bike short of her goal. She and her friends and partners have worked for over a year to put this project together and they’ve paid $7,000 to send this shipping container to South Africa.
So, we’re helping spread the word that Leonard will be accepting bikes again on Sunday the 25th from 1:00 – 4:00pm at Washington High School on SE 14th and Alder.
If you have a bike that you are not using and would like to donate it to the Portland chapter of Bicycles for Humanity, make your way to Washington High tomorrow.
Your old bike will have a huge impact on someone’s life. Tell your friends and spread the word. Let’s fill that container up!
lease help!
Curious if the donation is tax deductible?
it’s a noble cause for sure…
$7000 to send a shipping container?! I hope there’s a lot more than 400 bikes in there, because otherwise it’d probably be cheaper to send cash and buy new bikes closer to africa…
also, I never contribute to any causes outside of the US… at least not until that cause has been addressed in the US first… I have a feeling there are still a lot of poor kids in the US that could benefit from a bike… it would have been nice to see links to those in this article as well…
Jenny,
Nice work! You are doing a great thing, regardless of what some might say. Great start, and I hope things went well for you this weekend.
Spiffy,
This isn’t an article about getting involved in bicycle project domestically. It is about a container of bicycles being shipped to Africa. If you want to get involved domestically, here are some links:
http://dream-bikes.org/
http://www.bicyclekitchen.com/index.html
http://www.experimentalstation.org/blackstone/youth-education
http://bicas.org/
And don’t forget about the CCC right here in NE Portland!
Other programs of interest with a focused, but international lean, doing great things in North America are:
http://www.pedalpower.org/
http://bikesnotbombs.org/
Maybe an idea for a future story focus?
DP, thanks for the links!