As we reported yesterday, the Community Cycling Center‘s Holiday Bike Drive suffered a bit due to extreme weather conditions that kept many families away.
The event is their largest of the year and volunteers had readied well over 500 bikes to give to low-income kids. CCC communications director Alison Hill-Graves sent us an email with the following recap:
“We had a smaller, yet still incredible event despite that pesky storm. We had kids coming in until 3:30 and we still had staff and volunteers around to help. We ended up loading up about 400 bikes and getting them back up to North Portland where we keep them. We plan some kind of alternative event in January.”
The CCC has also published a longer recap on their website about how the snowstorm impacted the event.
Despite the rare and severe (for Portland) weather, more than 175 (that’s 70% of the total) showed up. Unforutunately though, just 175 kids — about 35% of what was expected — attended the event.
Hill-Graves says they’ll finalize another event in January that will connect those hundreds of bikes with the kids who need them.
— More photos of the event from Chad Berkley here.
Thanks for reading.
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Jonathan — will you please post the date in advance if possible, so that people wanting to volunteer have time to arrange the day off from work, etc.?
Thanks
i arrived a little after 8pm due to the weather and had an awesome time helping out the kids pick out bikes. it was sad to see the weather impact the event, but all kids and their families that were able to make it seemed to have a great time.
Beth,
If you’re interested in volunteering, please email Brian Benson at brian@communitycyclingcenter.org. We’d be happy to have you join us and we’ll keep you posted on dates, times, shifts, etc.
Thanks,
Alison
I just came across this article and wanted to say how cool! What a great program!
Its good people do these things, theres always next year to get the numbers up eh?
This was my first time working the HBD and it was pretty great. While it was a shame to see so many unclaimed bikes (not to mention having to load them all back up!), it was really fun to meet the families and wrench on the kids’ bikes. Extra points to the kid who told me he wanted a “cup holder” on his bike, for long distance rides. I reckon he’ll be riding his first brevet in no time! All in all, it felt great to be part of something so worthwhile. It’s really amazing what people can do when they work together for a common good.