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the President
About Us
The bicycles are repaired and cleaned by volunteers at work parties. The work parties begin around the first of November, and continue until around the fifteenth of December. They are on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 5:00 to 9:00 P.M., and Saturdays at 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. Typically, 20 to 50 volunteers attend during weeknights, and 50 to 100 volunteers attend on the weekends. Bicycles needing repairs are set aside in the work room for repair volunteers to choose from. Inexperienced volunteers typically are paired with an experienced volunteer to: assist in the location of parts, determine what needs to be fixed, suggestions about the best method to go about fixing it, and to inspect the first few bikes produced.
After the bicycle is repaired it is inspected and a red ribbon is attached. The Northland Optimists’ Ladies Group usually provides the ribbons for us. The bike is stored until it is used to fill a charities request.
Not all volunteers are skilled mechanics, but many are able to perform other tasks which are also required. Typically we receive bikes which are not practical to repair or exceed our needs for a particular type of bicycle. These bikes are broken down, we then save any usable parts, and finally the rest of the bike is scrapped. The scrap is sold to a local salvage yard. In addition to preparing all of the bikes they need to be: transported to and from each location, arranged for the pickup from the organization, or assisting in the unloading of the trucks when they arrive. Volunteer are also used to prepare a simple meal (of donated food from Oldies 95 advertisers), help keeping the premises clean, and cleaning of bicycles.
Not all of the bikes received are appropriate for kids. There are many different ways of using these particular bikes to the best of our advantage. Many of them are decent road bikes, so we attempt to sell them on the open market. We then use the proceeds to purchase parts to repair the kids’ bikes we produce each year. Many people also donate more expensive, high end bikes which are also sold to provide parts and purchase new kids bikes. By selling the used high end bicycles we can typically purchase between 1 and 3 new bikes. We will save the better bikes for special circumstances, but there is still a fear of having an expensive bike makes the child a direct target for theft, which would then leave them without a bike. In addition, we also provide bikes for transportation to other charitable organizations and programs. We have also sent bikes to Houston and New Orleans for hurricane victims. We also provide older bikes to the Sisters of St Francis, which are sent overseas to third world countries. We have also sent bikes to Patriensa in Ghana Africa to be used by the farmers and missionaries in the area.
The purchasing of new bikes are particularly trikes and smaller bikes that we don’t receive very many donations. Once our insurance and other recurring expenses are paid, the excess proceeds from the year are used to purchase new bikes for assembly. We try to maintain a balance sufficient to pay our recurring expenses for two years
