By Alan Schultz
Summer 2021 Newsletter

In the world of Pedals for Progress, cool overcast days bring the potential for amazing collections. Sunny spring weekends give a good excuse to enjoy the day, spend the day outdoors, and have a leisurely time. On the inverse, on cloudy days people are more prone to staying indoors and getting to that long list of things to do around the house. We hope that list includes donating their old bicycles and sewing machines that have been getting pushed to the end of the to-do list. While we hope for days like these, overcast days can also bring cold rain. We operate collections rain or shine! We understand rainy collections can be difficult for volunteers and are always thankful that despite rain our volunteers push through and prevail. The payoff for operating in these conditions can sometimes be very fruitful. This was certainly the case in New Providence, New Jersey, when our friends at the Faith Lutheran church were able to hold one of the largest collections in recent years.

On May 8th, during a cold rainy collection, Faith Lutheran Church was able to collect 402 bicycles for the weekend! Over the short three-hour collection, they maintained a donation rate of nearly one bike per minute! Our collections vary greatly and can bring in anywhere from 30–150 bicycles. These numbers are typically met by a combination of luck, good planning, and most importantly — motivated hosts. The folks at Faith Lutheran Church knocked it out of the park and were able to go above and beyond for this collection.

Pedals for Progress is greatly appreciative of this great number of bicycles collected. 400 bicycles are close to what we typically send in one single container to our partners overseas. In one weekend, Faith Lutheran was able to directly impact the lives of hundreds of people associated with our partners overseas in the developing world. This collection alone was a major contributor to our loading to Rwanda and helped make possible an early shipment to Togo. What was expected to be an unpredictable, perhaps even slow, spring collection season due to Covid-19 was instantly turned around by the efforts made by Faith Lutheran Church. The rain that hit during the collection was no match for the dedicated people in the community of New Providence that came out to donate their bicycles. They directly impacted the communities in Rwanda and Togo, who, like all of us, have been in a state of uncertainty due to our global pandemic. These early shipments have brought great hope and relief to those reliant on receiving new bicycles as communities abroad have also felt the economic effects of Covid-19.

Pedals for Progress would also like to give special thanks to Casey Walsh, who manages the collection efforts at Faith Lutheran. Casey is proof that motivated hosts can change a typical collection into an extraordinary one. While not required as part of running a collection, Casey used some of his free time to personally collect bicycles and provide the necessary funds before the collection weekend. His efforts not only brought in an extra hundred or so bikes, but also spread the word of P4P and Sewing Peace. He is a true advocate of our organization and is very passionate about helping our cause. We thank him dearly.

Casey’s motivation certainly rubs off on the members of Faith Lutheran Church. I was able to talk with some of the other members volunteering during the end of the rainy collection when we had some time after the bustling event. They were all incredibly excited to help process the bicycles for shipment and manage the heavy flow of bicycles. Behind the scenes, Casey was also able to encourage the church’s public relations team to spread the word about the collection. They reached a wide audience in the community,
encouraging them to come out and support the collection drive. Creating motivation within a group is not always an easy endeavor but Casey was able to raise morale and host a collection worth talking about.

We look forward to working with Faith Lutheran Church again in the future and again thank them for their time and dedication to Pedals for Progress. It is not a common occurrence that we get collections of 402 bicycles — we commend them for their work.

By David Schweidenback

February 2020

In February 2021 I will have spent 30 years collecting bicycles. A lot has changed over the years. Initially we received mainly 10-speed bicycles with a smattering of old English 3-speeds. The most common brands were Schwinn and Huffy. Today we receive mainly mountain bikes and the most common brand name by far is Trek! This is actually quite an improvement because mountain bikes are much more useful in the areas we ship to.

When I started we received one 20-inch-tire bicycle for every two adult bikes we collected. This was important for several reasons. A 20-inch BMX or banana-seat bicycle is a great bicycle overseas. It’s the correct size for many adults in the developing world. And these bikes are basically indestructible.

The 20-inch bicycles were also very important in shipping. When we load a container, we put a row of adult bikes side-to-side in the container, plywood on top of them, and then a second tier of adult bikes. We then put cardboard on top of the second tier of adult bikes and have enough room to stand up a row of 20-inch bikes as a third tier. This arrangement uses all the space in the container, so we can fit more bikes.

During the last year or two we started just getting fewer and fewer 20-inch bicycles. When I first started we had no competition for bicycles but now there is significant competition from other groups that are also collecting bicycles for their own domestic purposes. Initially I just assumed someone else was getting those bikes before Pedals for Progress could. The number of 20-inch bikes just continued declining and I realized that competition could not explain the lack of collectible 20-inch bikes. It really has become a problem in the loading process: instead of rolling 20-inch bikes on top of the second tier we now need to lay adult bikes flat on top, which is very strenuous for the guys doing the loading: they’re in a cramped space, lifting 30-pound bikes, and bending forward to stack them.

I was speaking with a bike shop owner and I mentioned this problem of not having enough 20-inch bikes to fill the smaller places in our containers. He was not surprised at all and told me that although he had 20-inch bikes in his shop he almost never sold any. That’s when the light bulb lit up in my mind.

It is not competition taking the bikes but just the sheer lack of availability. Very few 10-year-old kids ask their parents for a bicycle for their birthday. New iPhones and virtual-reality goggles are preferred. There are still many kids of that age who have a bicycle, but every 10-year-old used to have a bike. Now it seems having a bike at that age is the exception, not the norm. Who knew? The lack of 20-inch bicycles is not some fault in our collection system. It is not a serious problem that threatens our Corporation but I was glad to learn the lesson: societies change.