Today we held our first Pedals for Progress event.
P4P is a New Jersey based 501c3. Their mission statement is simple: 'To empower sustainable economic development by recycling bicycles and sewing machines from the U.S. and shipping them to motivated people in the developing world'.
Terri Hutchinson was the point person for this project - she organized and directed the effort. For a first attempt, we did quite well. Terry, with the assistance of two volunteers from our InterAct club at the high school, posted fliers all over town, Terry also put ads in the local media and collected ten bikes and several sewing machines from the Summit transfer station and from friends and acquaintances.
On Saturday, June 8th, at the Summit YMCA headquarters parking lot, we collected another fifteen bikes and more sewing machines.
The bikes were partially dismantled to facilitate shipping. Volunteers Roger Mehner, Jim Fleischmann, and Jennifer Zhou from the InterAct club, managed the dismantling of the bikes with help from the P4P president, Allen Schultz.
In total, we collected twenty-five bikes and ten sewing machines.
A special thank you to Terri for all the time-consuming and challenging work she put into this project and to Roger, Jennifer and Jim for their hard work in preparing the bikes for shipment.
