Community Corner

Donate a Bike, Change a Life

Pedals for Progress, a nonprofit organization that ships used bikes to developing countries, will hold a bike drive Oct. 15 at Newtown Elementary School.

What is a typical day for a typical Newtown resident?

Well, most of us get up, eat breakfast, get dressed, hop in the car and go to work.

But imagine if you didn't own a car or even have a bicycle. How would you get to work if you didn’t have the wheels?

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Pedals for Progress, a New Jersey-based nonprofit organization, is working to help residents of developing countries achieve independence by giving them wheels. The organization collects used bicycles and ships them overseas to countries like Nicaragua, Ghana and Vietnam.

You can help the cause on Oct. 15, when a Pedals for Progress bike drive, coordinated by the Newtown Rotary Club, will be held from noon to 3 p.m. during at . The organization will also be collecting sewing machines to donate to developing countries.

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With a bike, residents of these countries can get to work, school and to the market to sell their goods, explained Pedals for Progress President David Schweidenback.

“Every bicycle and every sewing machine can potentially lift a family from poverty,” Schweidenback said.

Schweidenback said in addition to donating the bicycle, the organization requests a $10 donation to offset the cost of shipping, which can be as much as $36 per bike depending on the destination.

Pedals for Progress has been collecting bicycles in Newtown for at least 10 years, Schweidenback recalled, adding the bikes from the Oct. 15 drive will in all likelihood head to Vietnam.

Bikes of all conditions are welcomed for donation.

“As long as they are relatively rust-free and you haven’t run them over with your car, we'll take them,” Schweidenback said. “They all can be made use of.”

Even kids bikes are needed, he added.

“We’re trying to mobilize entire populations,” Schweidenback said, adding that if the elementary school is five miles away, a child won't get there walking but can get there and back on a bike.

“People use (the bikes) for a great variety of stuff and they become the family van. It’s more often you see two or three people on the bikes than one because it’s all they have and everybody has to share,” Schweidenback said.

In the 21 years since it was founded, Pedals for Progress has shipped 132,000 bikes to more than 35 countries, Schweidenback said. Countries include Nicaragua, Guatemala, Ghana, Uganda, Albania, Vietnam and more.

They are shipped in ocean-going containers.  Sewing machines are shipped in the same containers with the bikes.

Once they reach the destination, an organization partner – always a national of that country – then sells the bikes at a low cost. The average price per bike is $15, Schweidenback said. A portion of that money goes to operate the shop in that country. The rest goes towards future shipping costs.

Schweidenback said it’s important that the natives purchase the bikes because then they feel a sense of ownership for the item.

“The elimination of poverty is personal.  To get and hold a job, you have to go to work. Half the people in the world have no access to mobility.”

“In the developing world, if you give someone a chance to work, 99 percent of the people will go," Schweidenback said. "Most of the people want to work, they’re willing to work -- they just can’t get there.”

To learn more about Pedals for Progress visit www.p4p.org.


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