For nearly 20 years, the Village Bicycle Project has collected and sent more than 150,000 bikes from the United States and the United Kingdom to communities in Sierra Leone and Ghana.
“Our mission is to support sustainable bicycle transportation projects in West Africa,” said board member and Parkite Jamie May. “Overall we promote bike culture as a way of improving access to professional and educational development.”
The Village Bicycle Project, which is based in Salt Lake City, will host its annual Park City spring bike drive from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. on Saturday, May 3, at the Staples and Walmart Parking lot at Kimball Junction.
“If anyone has a bike they no longer use, we will take it,” May said. “We are looking for bikes in usable conditions, kids or adult models, even if old. We prefer mostly-working bikes, if possible, but if people think their bikes can be fixed, those bikes will be accepted as well.”
May said mountain bikes are always welcome.
“They are the ones that have long lives, because they are well made,” he said. “And they can transform someone’s life on the other side of the world.”
The drive will also accept donations of used bike parts, tires, inner tubes and any cycling clothing that are in decent shape, May said.
“Older bike parts are the best because those are the parts that are needed to service the used and older bikes we collect,” he said. “We also ask for a $25 accompanying donation to offset shipping. The bike and donations are tax deductible, and we will provide a receipt if you want one.”
This year marks the fifth year the Village Bicycle Project will host a bike drive in Park City, according to May.
“We usually collect between 100 to 125 bikes during this drive,” he said. “We have a shipping container in Salt Lake, and we send one loading per year out of Utah. Usually, we come up about 100 bikes short of filling the container, so the Park City bike drive allows us to top off the shipping container.”
Once the bikes arrive in Africa they are distributed to adults, students and children, May said.
“There is really a need for bikes to transform the development efforts that are going on there,” he said. “There are so many remote villages, and people need to be able to get around and leave their homes in order to have opportunities to pursue professional or educational objectives.”
Cars are not an option in most cases, according to May.
“But there are plenty of dirt roads, so bikes help ease the dilemma of having people choose between walking long distances, which is time-prohibitive, for job opportunities, or staying in their homes,” he said.
The Village Bicycle Project, which bicycle activist and former Peace Corps Volunteer David Peckham founded in 1999, isn’t the only organization in the United States that collects used bikes for people living in West Africa, May said.
“As well as collecting our bikes, we accept donated shipping containers from other groups like Bikes Not Bombs out of Boston or Bikes for the World out of Washington, D.C.,” he said. “They will collect bikes on the ground in the U.S., and they will need a place to send the shipping containers that hold 400 to 450 bikes.”
While the Village Bicycle Project partners and cooperates with these organizations, it is different because it employs in-country teams in Sierra Leone and Ghana, May said.
“They are there to receive, process and distribute bikes and equipment,” he said.
Teams also run various bicycle programming, May said.
“Those programs teach bike receivers how to use, maintain and take care of their bikes,” he said. “They also train mechanics. Part of bike culture is having bike shops that sell parts and repair bikes.”
This year the Village Bicycle Project started a partnership with Schools for Salone, May said.
“Salone is a nickname for Sierra Leone in the Krio language, and they are another nonprofit based in Seattle,” he said. “They build schools in Sierra Leone and got interested in working with us to get bikes into the hands of the students who attend these schools.”
Through the partnership, Schools for Salone pays for the Village Bicycle Project’s shipments of containers for 5,000 bikes, May said.
“The reason that’s helpful is because the biggest cost point for us is shipping costs,” he said. “It costs between $6,000 to $10,000 for a shipping container to get from U.S. soil to West Africa soil.”
In exchange, the Village Bicycle Project provides the 5,000 bikes to Schools of Salone.
“We’ve already delivered 1,000 of the 5,000, and we will deliver the next 4,000 in the next four years that will be distributed through Schools for Salone,” May said. “So there is a chance that some of the bikes we collect in Park City will be distributed through that partnership.”
Annual Village Bicycle Project Used Bike Drive
- When: 9 a.m.-1 p.m., Saturday, May 3
- Where: Staples and Walmart Parking lot at Kimball Junction
- Web: villagebicycleproject.org