Bikes for the World Needs Some Help Next Week

[acc]

I am on the Bikes for the World's mailing list and am passing this along.
Ann

Special Bulletin from Bikes for the World -- Proof of the Old Adage: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR...YOU MIGHT GET IT!

May 4, 2012

Bikes for the World needs your help this coming week. We are expecting the delivery of as many as 3,000 bicycles from Dick's Sporting Goods, our latest corporate partner, and we need physical assistance at our Lorton Virginia site to unload incoming tractor-trailers, sort by type and condition, ensure the bikes are properly compacted, and prepare for the loading of an outgoing container at the end of the week.

We are looking for assistance from all friends, but especially those with flexible schedules--retirees, students, the self-employed, and individuals whose employers provide opportunities for community service.

We will be on-site from approximately 10 am - 5 pm beginning Tuesday and going through Saturday. Tuesday through Thursday are unloading and sorting days; Friday and Saturday are loading days.

No prior experience is needed and the activity should be fun -- we will work as a team rolling bikes, putting aside anything that should be recycled for scrap metal, and making sure that the bikes are properly compacted for easy storage and shipping. Refreshments will be provided and the activity takes place at the gymnasium of the former Lorton Prison--something wrth a visit justy to see. We estimate its capacity to be 5,000 bikes or more, and the success of our corporate partnership with Dick's Sporting Goods will put this assumption to the test! .

For more information, write office@bikesfortheworld.org or call 571-212-4139. And check out the press release on the trade-in program with Dick's Sporting Goods at http://bikesfortheworld.org/index.ph...d=125&Itemid=1

So come out and help! Or if you know a student just home from college and bored, send him (or her) this way! We will nered all the help we can get this coming week -- any day from Tuesday on, and especially Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

[acc]

I worked with Bikes for the World last Friday loading bikes onto a container truck for transport to Costa Rica. This shipment is scheduled for delivery to a rural area where people will have the opportunity to purchase a bike with a micro loan.

Right now the former prison gym in Lorton is filled with donated bikes awaiting processing and loading. Have you ever seen 4,000+ bikes in one place?


It took a group of six of us about 4 hours to come close to loading approximately 400 bikes.

This shows the second row about halfway finished.

This is the sixth and seventh row.

And sometimes you find the oddest things.


Bikes of the World is looking for volunteers on Friday and Saturday mornings to work in Lorton loading bikes and doing some processing.
http://www.bikesfortheworld.org/inde...d=115&Itemid=1

It's hard, dirty work. And that's why I like it. :-D

[KLizotte]

Wow, that's amazing but I'd be concerned about the bikes getting damaged being squished in like that. Hopefully there are folks at the other end that can check them out before they hit the road.

Awesome work though by the organization (and our intrepid Ann of course).

[brendan]

And sometimes you find the oddest things.

For some reason, the first thing that came to mind was an animated series starring those two bike seats.

Brendan