My name is Aminata Sesay, and I am a member of Slow Food Sierra Leone. I have been a subsistence organic farmer for over eight years, growing cassava, sweet potatoes, okra, rice, and traditional herbs. I strongly believe in good, clean, and fair agriculture. As a mother of three, I have faced significant challenges, especially after losing my husband to the Ebola virus five years ago.

As the demand for food continues to grow in Sierra Leone, the agricultural sector is becoming increasingly vital for the country’s economic development. However, many smallholder farmers like me face considerable challenges, including limited access to markets, inadequate inputs and credit, and poor infrastructure and transportation systems. These issues hinder the productivity and profitability of smallholder farmers, ultimately limiting our ability to contribute to the growth of the agricultural sector.

One promising solution to these challenges is the use of bicycles in agriculture. Bicycles are a sustainable and cost-effective alternative to traditional fuel-powered vehicles, offering numerous benefits for smallholder farmers in Sierra Leone. They facilitate transportation, reduce costs, and improve access to markets.

On July 23, 2024, I was approached by a team of Slow Food garden coordinators who asked me to share the challenges I face in my agricultural production process. I filled out a questionnaire to express my needs, identifying three key challenges: the transportation of my agricultural products to the market, the lack of seedlings, and the lack of dibbers.

Fatmata Mansary, the head of Slow Food in the Kailahun District, took my questionnaire and promised to follow up with me. On October 27, 2024, while working on my farm, I received a call from Fatmata asking me to meet her at the town wall. To my surprise, she informed me that Pedals for Progress, a United States organization, had donated a bicycle to our network, and I was one of the beneficiaries.

When Fatmata shared the news with a smile, I was overwhelmed with joy and exclaimed, “Thank you, Pedals for Progress, for this amazing gift and support!” Before this, I had been walking five miles every day to sell my produce at the market, which was incredibly challenging. Now, I had received a new tricycle from Duke Farm, outfitted with strong, clean tires.

Fatmata provided the bicycles along with lending guidelines for me and other community members through the Association. This initiative aims to create opportunities for women farmers like me to access markets, schools, and health centers.

Moreover, Fatmata and Ibrahim facilitated community sensitization meetings to educate residents on the importance of the Pedals for Progress bicycle project and to address related socio-economic issues.

The introduction of the Pedals for Progress bicycle project and the accompanying training has been timely and essential in helping our rural communities recover. It has strengthened access to work and education through the power of bicycles.

By Alan Schultz
Fall 2022 Newsletter

It is that time of year again as we slow down operations for the winter until we resume collections for our Spring 2023 season. Our Fall 2022 season proved to be a short, yet jam packed collections season. We held a total 12 collections, mostly in the month of October, to close out the fall season shipping three containers of bikes and sewing machines and two  loads of sewing machines. We sent 72 machines to a new partner in Somalia, and another 72 to our old friends with the Norbert and Friends missions in Tanzania. We also sent out three full containers to FIDESMA in Guatemala, P4P Belize and D.R.V.R in Togo! While we may not have had a long list of collections like years past, we did average about 84 bikes per collection and noticed a large increase of sewing machines. We were able to send our third container just before Thanksgiving, giving us plenty of room to fill up our storage facility come spring.

Moving forward, my number one goal is to strengthen our domestic operations to fill our Spring 2023 season to the brim. I want to operate in more communities throughout the tri-state area to fulfill the extremely high demand for bicycles and sewing machines we have from our friends located around the world. While reaching out to more groups will be key, I also want to strengthen the potential for current groups that already run collections by helping them interact with one another and strengthen the inner P4P community of sponsors. Building a stronger internal network will allow collectors to interact with each other to share valuable insider information on running successful collections.

It finally feels as if we have full potential now with the Pandemic in our rearview mirror. It’s now time to keep the truck moving forward, town to town, picking up as many items as possible. The growth of our domestic sphere will allow us to keep up with our projects overseas. The work we do here has a direct correlation with what we can do with our partners in the developing nations we operate. My fascination with Pedals for Progress has always been this fact. The bike that a donor drops off on a Saturday morning at one of our collections, is the same bike that arrives to a person in need of reliable transportation. This is how we operate; we build a bridge between our donors and someone else thousands of miles away. I am excited to build upon the bridges we have so that we may continue bringing aid to those in need. I encourage you to read more about what we’ve been up to and to join us as we continue our mission of sending use bikes and sewing machines to motivated individuals in the developing world.

By Simon Yawo Galé AKOUETE
Fall 2022 Newsletter

[Editor’s note: Togo has been a Sewing Peace partner since 2019 and a Pedals for Progress partner since 2020. Here is an introduction to our partner in Togo, Association Défi et Révolution de la Vie Rurale (DRVR-TOGO, Challenge and Revolution in Rural Life). ]

In June 2019 we received our first shipment from Sewing Peace: 72 sewing machines. After that we got another 5 containers with both bicycles and sewing machines, the last of which we received on June 22, 2022 — a total of 2366 bikes and 395 sewing machines.

Our four-year partnership has enabled us to offer much needed support to our communities, as we’ve reported in earlier posts:

• Togo #2 arrived in June 2019.
  
• Sandra Anani tells her story about the 1912 Singer treadle sewing machine she got in 2020 from a tailor from New York State.
• Togo #3 arrived in July 2021.
  
• Togo #4, 463 bikes and 53 sewing machines, was shipped in May 2021.
  
• Togo #5 arrived in December 2021.
  
• This report from spring 2022 has stories from 7 recipients of SP/P4P sewing machines and bikes.

Despite our successes, much remains to be done. This fight is far from over.

In addition to our work with P4P/SP, DRVR-TOGO has followed in the footsteps of the Togolese state in the process of modernization of our artisan community. We supervise, train, and promote our craftsmen to help them increase their production both for local consumption and for outside sales.

The first edition of the Togolese Crafts Day, in 2021, engaged artisans from all regions of the country. After the resounding success of the first Crafts Day, a very attractive program was planned for the second edition. It took place from June 23 to July 06, 2022. The event was celebrated in a special way in the prefecture of Vo with action-packed programs organized and financed by the artisans themselves.

The attendees included the artisans, members of the office and president of the finance commission of the chamber of trade of the prefecture of Vo, and the coordinator of DRVR-TOGO.

The festivities also included the graduation ceremony from the DRVR-TOGO sewing apprenticeship program and the awarding of sewing machines and other working materials to the graduates, who can now take their destiny into their own hands, open their own workshops and practice their trades in peace, and take care of their needs and those of their families.

The entire population of Vo and especially the families of the trainees who received sewing machines offer their sincere thanks to P4P/SP.

Click here for some recent success stories from our graduates.

By Dave Schweidenback
Spring 2022 Newsletter

Dear Supporters of Pedals for Progress and Sewing Peace,

This organization has come a long way since a cold day in February 1991 when I saw a few bikes sitting next to a garbage can and decided to do something about it. It has been an amazing journey, literally. P4P has given me the opportunity to visit multiple countries in the pursuit of stronger partnerships.

This whole idea came about because I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the small town of Sucúa, Ecuador, in the late 1970s. My landlord, Cesar Peña, had the only bike. Everybody else walked everywhere they went, all the time. I was always so envious of his wheels, but there were no bikes that you could buy.

Then, more than a decade later, I saw those bikes next to the garbage can and it just made sense to connect the dots. I could get a whole bunch together and send them back. I’m amazed at how naïve I was. It was not that easy and actually Ecuador refused them. But I persevered because it just made sense. Save the landfills here while creating greater prosperity overseas. And it made sense to other people like the Ernie Simpsons and Bob Gleasons of the world, and all who came to my aid.

It has been a privilege to be the President of Pedals for Progress all these years. This will be the last president’s message from me, as Alan Schultz will be taking over the Presidency in August. I will be stepping back,  acting as VP, International Programs.

Please continue your support of Pedals for Progress and Alan and his team. I am quite sure that Alan will do a fantastic job. It’s a lot of work moving tons of steel and that’s what it is when you talk about thousands of bikes. The domestic operation needs someone much younger than I am who can physically manage the loading of the containers and the processing of hundreds of bicycles. Alan will be able to bring a new vitality into the organization and now that hopefully the worst of the Covid pandemic is behind us, we hope to aggressively move forward, increasing production so that we can add more overseas partnerships in the coming years.

Thank you for everything. It’s been great.

Dave

Spring 2008 Newsletter

Long before there was Pedals for Progress, there was Ernie Simpson, who collected old bikes, fixed them up, and gave them to poor children in his community at Christmas. He began doing this in the 1950s. Over the years, as word got out and people donated more and more bikes, Ernie faced a situation that we’re very familiar with here at Pedals for Progress—an abundance of used bikes. His barn was overflowing with them. Needing a means to give them away, he found us. That was in 1996.

Ernie initially gave us fifty-five bikes. These days, he’s our largest single source of bikes, collecting close to a thousand a year for us. More recently, he and one of his friends began refurbishing sewing machines for our sister project, Sewing Peace. Just like he does with bikes, he provides us with more sewing machines than anyone else. And in addition to putting the machines in working order, he has compiled a library of instruction manuals for all the makes and models that come his way. Ernie includes one with every sewing machine he gives us.

Typically, the bikes we receive come to us as-is, needing some work, and always needing to be prepped for shipping. The bikes we get from Ernie, on the other hand, are practically as good as new. He and his helpers take the time to fix each bike and put it in good working order, even replacing parts where needed, then they prep each bike for shipping. As if Ernie doesn’t do enough already, he also raises a monetary donation with each bike—just like we do at our collections—to help us with shipping.

Ernie’s community service extends well beyond his work with bikes. He taught machining at the Paradise School for Boys, where they named the machine shop after him. He also taught lawn mower maintenance and landscaping from his shop in Gettysburg. And during the 1960s, he established a local rehabilitation program for juvenile offenders.

In 1997, we honored Ernie with our Pedal Wrench Award. But we aren’t the only ones to recognize Ernie’s altruism and service to his community. In 2002, he was given the Lifetime Peacemaker Award from the Interfaith Center for Peace and Justice in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, his hometown. And in 2005, the Rotary Club of Gettysburg presented him with the Dwight D. Eisenhower Award. In addition to these accolades, Ernie was named a Paul Harris Fellow, received an award from the Adams County Bar Association, and received citations sponsored by Pennsylvania Senator Terry Punt and Representative Steve Maitland.

Ernie’s devotion to helping others is remarkable, and inspiring. That he’s 87 years old, and working as hard as he does for us and others, makes his story even more remarkable and inspiring. He’s touched numerous lives with his kindness and generosity, and we’re grateful that he chose to help us— thousands of families overseas live better lives because of him.

[This is a lightly edited version of the original PDF article from the Spring 2008 InGear newsletter.]

Albania

President’s Message

Great Men Part 1: Bob Gleason

Rwanda

Uganda

Vermont

Tanzania

Board of Trustees

Active Partners

Financial Sponsors

Collection Sponsors

Chester County PA Solid Waste Authority
Congregation Beth El – Ner Tamid, Broomall, PA
Emmanuel Bible Church, Schooley’s Mountain, NJ
Green Mountain Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, VT
Memorial United Methodist Church, Avon, CT
Newtown, NJ, Rotary Club
Raritan Valley NJ Habitat for Humanity
Rotary Club of Branchburg, NJ
Saint Andrew’s Presbyterian Church Youth Group, Lebanon, PA
Saint John’s Memorial Episcopal Church, Ramsey, NJ
Saint Joseph Church, Bogota, NJ
Saint Stephen’s United Church of Christ, Perkasie, PA
Westfield, NJ, Rotary Club

Staff