Pedals for Progress, a New Jersey nonprofit corporation, empowers sustainable economic development by recycling bicycles and sewing machines from the U.S. and shipping them to motivated people in the developing world. Pedals for Progress (P4P) is a nonprofit charity incorporated under the laws of New Jersey and registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt charity under section 501(c)(3) of the federal tax code (EIN: 22-3122003). An eleven-member unpaid board of trustees oversees a paid staff of 2 and a network of hundreds of volunteers.
2025 HIGHLIGHTS
Pedals for Progress shipped 7 containers and 2 LCL (Less than Container Load) shipments for a total of 3,103 bicycles, and 359 sewing machines, to 4 nonprofit agency partners in 4 developing countries. This brings cumulative donations shipped since 1991 to 171,335 bicycles, 6,878 sewing machines.
We concentrated our collection operations within the New York City and Philadelphia suburbs increasing our efficiency. Our bicycle and sewing machine collections were sponsored by 35 community partners in five states.
2025 Shipments
Recipients of Fiscal 2025 Bicycle Container Shipments
- Absolute Bikes Tirana, Tirana, Albania 436 Bikes and 30 Sewing Machines, 435 bikes and 40 sewing machines
- FIDESMA, Chimaltenango, Guatemala, 460 bikes and 25 sewing machines, 431 bikes and 30 sewing machines
- God Cares Outreach (P4P-Belize), Belize City, Belize 440 bicycles and 30 sewing machines, 465 bikes and 60 sewing machines
- GoBike, Kosovo, Pristina, 436 bikes
Started the year 10/1/24 with 119 bicycles in inventory.
Ended the year 9/30/25 with 162 bicycles remaining in inventory.
2025 Total Shipped: 3,103, Total Collected (from scheduled collections): 2,438
Bicycle Shipments by Region
| Fiscal 2025 | Fiscal 2024 | |
| Africa | 0% | 53% |
| Asia | 0% | 0% |
| Central America | 58% | 22% |
| Eastern Europe | 42% | 25% |
Recipients of Fiscal 2025 Sewing Machine LCL Shipments
- Mityana Open Troop Foundation, Uganda (144 sewing machines)
- P4P container shipments – 215 sewing machines (see above)
Started the year 10/1/24 with 252 sewing machines in inventory.
Ended the year 9/30/25 with 360 sewing machines in inventory.
2025 Total Shipped: 359, Total Collected: 402
Sewing Machines Shipments by Region
| Fiscal 2025 |
Fiscal 2024 |
|
| Africa | 40% | 82% |
| Asia | 0% | 0% |
| Central America | 40% | 6% |
| Eastern Europe | 20% | 12% |
OVERSEAS PARTNERS
During the year, Pedals for Progress continued to serve our smaller reliable partners for the majority of our shipments with the addition of one program that was previously inactive. We have slowly shifted our focus to our longer standing programs to ensure maximum output from our donated material. This more conservative approach will allow us to quickly and effectively ship bicycles to trusted sources, further ensuring donor support is used to its fullest capacity.
The most critical factors in creating a sustainable, self-financing partnership are shipping costs and effective administration by our overseas partners. We currently consider 4 partnerships as sustainable, i.e., capable of paying for successive shipments. Experience has proven that when the shipping costs are at or below $15 per bike or $10 per sewing machine, with good management, this cost is low enough to sustain a self-financing partnership. Without charitable donations, grants or other funding, Pedals for Progress is limited to working primarily in Central America and the Caribbean, while Africa and Eastern Europe require subsidies to pay their higher shipping costs. Overseas distribution success is determined by per unit cost. Landlocked countries remain beyond our reach due to excessive inland transportation costs. Domestic shipping is also expensive; our domestic inland trucking costs to get shipments to port have more than doubled in the last five years.
While our primary goal is to supply environmentally sound transportation to communities and stimulate the greater movement of goods and services, our partners often generate extra funds from the bikes we ship them. These windfall funds, in turn, finance a breadth of community development activities.
Still, we are hopeful that other partner organizations, including some that did not receive bikes in 2025, will pay all or most expenses for new shipments in fiscal 2026, or subsidies will be found to initiate new programs.
CONTINUING PARTNERS
- Guatemala: Fundación Integral de Desarrollo Sostenible y Medio Oriente (FIDESMA), San Andrés Itzapa, Chimaltenango
- Albania: Absolute Bikes Tirana, Tirana
- Belize: God Cares Outreach, Belize City
- Uganda: The Mityana Open Troop Foundation, Mityana
NEW PARTNERS 2025
P4P was able to take on one “new” program for fiscal 2025. As we have shifted our focus to aiding successful long-term programs, we were comfortable revisiting one with a previous relationship. In fiscal 2025 we were able to return to supporting GoBike in Kosovo, after their brief pause in operations due to covid. With their operations back up and running, we were thrilled to welcome a familiar program to our network of support:
- Kosovo: GoBike, Pristina
FINANCES
2025 was a good year for Pedals for Progress finances. We started fiscal 2025 in a good financial position with a strong balance sheet. Our operating income relies on four primary income streams: cash donations with bikes and sewing machines, cash donations from the twice-annual solicitation, corporate donations, and revolving funds and fees from our international partners.
Solicitations remained about the same to our previous year, with larger donations from a couple of long-term supporters helping us meet our solicitation goals. These larger donations continue to be key to our seasonal collection operations as they help us get through slower, yet important winter months. We do forecast some individual support to dwindle but hope to maintain financial security through dollars with bikes and larger individual donations.
Direct corporate donations continue to decrease due to a focus on employee matching programs. We are actively applying to be seen in these employee databases and encourage our supports to nominate P4P for their companies’ giving programs.
Our sustaining international partners are expected to reimburse Pedals for Progress for the cost of containers or LCL shipments. These are categorized as “revolving funds”: the partners save income to pay for successive shipments. This category met expectations as the number of containers shipped to sustaining partners met the plan. Overall, 2025 operating income exceeded budget.
Operating expenses include four large categories: employee and officers’ compensation, shipping and packing, collections expenses, and office rent. Shipping and packing expenses continue to remain high largely due to the increased cost of shipping and fuel. Collection expenses, office rent, and all remaining minor expenses categories met expectations.
P4P in 2025 had a few extraordinary items. P4P has a conservative investment policy. 2025 was a shaky period for stocks, bonds, and mutual funds as they generally maintained value in the long run. These generated some income for P4P as did some of the stock donations.
Overall, 2025 met financial expectations for P4P.
Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss statements are attached.
CORPORATE AND IN-KIND DONORS
FedEx continues to deliver to New Jersey, at no cost, the bicycles collected by the P4P Vermont and the Green Mountain Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, based in Burlington, Vermont. We’d like to thank our friends in Vermont and the many other organizations involved in their efforts.
We’d like to thank Martys’ Reliable Cycle and Jesse Epstein for donating store space and time, to help launch drop off sites across their five locations. They have helped us collect 100+ bicycles this fiscal year.
Millburn Public Waste has graciously acted as a drop off location for residents of Millburn and Far Hills and donates lot space and covers the cost of removal shipment overseas.
Mavis in Califon, at no cost, donated trucking maintenance.
Thank you to the many corporations that participate through matching gifts.
We are very thankful for the support of these organizations and the recognition they have given us.
KEY VOLUNTEERS
Pedals for Progress depends on the efforts of volunteers, several hundred of them, to publicize and work collections, prep bikes for shipping, help us warehouse bikes, and eventually load them into containers bound for our partner agencies overseas.
A special thanks to Michael Sabrio for managing at bike collections and maintaining Webmaster duties; Maureen Greenbaum for aiding in online advertisements and expansion efforts.
We thank our Tinkerers Dennis Smyth, Paul Lemaire and Mary O’Brien for their excellent work refurbishing many of the sewing machines we ship.
Thank you to Joanne Heidkamp, Paul Demers, Bob Thompson, and Mary O’Brien for leading, organizing, and executing bicycle and sewing machine procurement throughout the state of Vermont: 224 bikes and 82 sewing machines collected.
We especially thank these collectors:
Jerry Agasar with the Newtown Rotary Club: 122 bikes and 12 sewing machines collected
Casey Walsh with Faith Lutheran Church: 64 bikes and 13 sewing machines
John Greenberg with St. John’s Episcopal Church: 146 bikes and 6 sewing machines collected
Daryl Detrick with the Warren Hills HS Computer Science Club: 112 bikes and 37 sewing machines collected
Ridgewood Recycling: 129 bikes collected
David Hanrahan and Alicia Fichera with the Vineland Rotary Club and DNS Solutions: 102 bikes and 16 sewing machines collected
Kip Bateman and the Branchburg Rotary Club: 146 bikes and 6 sewing machines collected
Stephen Ellerman and the Morristown Rotary Club: 141 bikes and 8 sewing machines collected
2025 COLLECTION SPONSORS
Westfield Rotary Club
Delmar Reformed Church
Branchburg Rotary Club
Morristown Rotary Club
Vineland Rotary Club
New Dover United Methodist Church
Chester County Solid Waste Authority
Newtown Rotary Club
Pilgrim Presbyterian Church
Watchung Farmers Market
Hackettstown Public Library
Flemington DIY
Monmouth Social Club
Blair Academy
Rotary Club of the Rockaways
Colts Neck Reformed Church
Blooming Glen Mennonite Church Youth Group
Passaic County Office of Solid Waste & Recycling
Warren Hills Computer Science Club
Clinton Presbyterian Church
North Hunterdon Rotary Club
Ridgewood Recycling
Fair Lawn Rotary Club
Califon United Methodist Church
Sri Sathya Sai Global Council Center of Bridgewater
Madison Rotary Club
Faith Lutheran Church
St. Joseph Church
Union Village United Methodist Church
Knights of Columbus Council 10830
Livingston Rotary Club
St. John’s Episcopal Church
P4P Vermont
Green Mountain Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
Rotary Club of Norristown
PROGRAM CHALLENGES
Pedals for Progress began the year on a strong and positive note and we were able to maintain strong financial standing. We still faced challenges stemming from rippling effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic and its lasting effects on our economy, particularly inflation, and increased prices of gasoline and shipping. There has been a lingering supply chain issue that periodically slows shipments.
Pedals for Progress has been able to maintain a very slim employee base after the full transition of leadership that began in 2022 but still face the need to fundraise for support.
The bicycles collected this year continue to be the highest quality bikes that we have ever collected. The most common brand name was Trek and we collected over 80% mountain bikes in the adult bike category. The vast majority of bikes we collected were originally sold in a bike shop for a relatively high price.
Our spring collection season, while beginning to diminish, has slowly rebounded in success. Our fall collections season has greatly improved and now considered our strong season. The decrease in collection totals for our spring collections season is unknown as sponsorship remained on par with FY24. As we are reliant on the success of collections to keep us financially active, we had to rely heavily on our summer solicitation to help us keep up with our added salary line and general operations.
Encouraging pre-collection efforts with our sponsors continues to be a challenge mostly due to storage restraints on smaller clubs. We hope to find solutions to make drop offs easier for donors. We hope to improve collection efforts by working more closely with our collection sponsors on advertisement and pre-collection efforts.
P4P was fortunate to receive a large one-time donation this spring that further helped our program with decreased bicycle donations felt this spring. This highlights the need for increased individual donations and the importance of fundraising efforts outside our collection efforts.
Pedals for Progress developed partnerships worldwide to diversify relationships and reduce the risk of events in one country or region negatively affecting our operations. Since reduction of transportation costs is doubtful, we are seeking sponsorships to supplement our African and other high cost partnerships. Partner programs in Central America, which have a landed cost of under $15 per bike, are successful financially and require no further subsidies to continue shipments. P4P inland partners in Eastern Europe and Africa will fail without financial support. International shipping costs in these regions run from $16 per bike on the coast to as high as $38 inland (Uganda).
Shipping the sewing machines within bicycles shipments makes the delivery of these heavy objects affordable. However, our bicycle partners need relatively few sewing machines. The challenge is to find the funding to deliver machines to small sewing programs like the Mityana Open Troop Foundation in Uganda or to get them delivered very inexpensively. Most new sewing projects require only two pallets of machines. Due to that low volume, initial shipments were previously shipped via air freight, which is very expensive. P4P developed in 2013 the capacity to ship by boat individual pallets of sewing machines at a very reasonable cost. This low-cost shipping allows us to expand our small standalone sewing machine projects globally.
GOALS FOR 2026
During fiscal 2026, Pedals for Progress plans to ship approximately 3,000 bicycles and 400 sewing machines. Collection sites where we send our personnel will be limited to the greater suburbs of New York and Philadelphia. Bicycles collected outside this region need to be delivered to our New Jersey warehouse by the collection sponsors. We aim to add many more collections sponsors to help us meet these expected goals. We encourage interested individuals or groups to reach out to us to inquire about sponsoring a collection.
We also aim to make donating to Pedals for Progress easier and more convenient. We are slowing introducing drop off programs to do so, but still face financial problems setting up and maintaining these sites.
Pedals for Progress challenges continue to be financial, not supply-side driven. With more funding, we can collect significantly more bikes within our current footprint and initiate more programs internationally. Increasing production requires more staff for attending potential collections and more vehicles on the road. The operational costs of producing the bicycles and sewing machines are significant. P4P is unable to accept bicycles without an accompanying cash donation; this limits production. Our collection efforts that produce the product we deliver. In many ways, you can think of P4P as a trucking company. Every trip in the truck produces more bicycles and sewing machines, our products. These products make the difference globally by helping people in need help themselves.
2025 BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Jamie Acosta
Jerry Agasar
John Alexander, chairman
Daryl Detrick
David Schweidenback, treasurer and VP, International Programs
Casey Walsh
Andrew Williams
Thomas Beishke
Ryan Saul, secretary
STAFF
Alan Schultz, President
David Schweidenback, Vice President, International Programs and Founder
Michael Sabrio, Webmaster
Robert Delghiaccio, Warehouseman
Otto Hintz, Warehouseman
Evan Vaccarella, Warehouseman
Joel Ortega. Warehouseman
Paul Salvetti, Warehouseman
Further information about Pedals for Progress is available at www.p4p.org. This includes our financial statements, IRS Form 990s, and information about our 501(c)(3) nonprofit tax-exempt status.
To receive our newsletters or information on how to collect bikes and/or sewing machines, contact alan@p4p.org. To request a donation of a container of bicycles or sewing machines, contact Alan at alan@p4p.org
