Mission Accomplished: 2016 – 2017 Bikes Not Bombs

In 2016 – 2017, we committed to raise $10,000 for “Bikes not Bombs”.  We kicked off this effort September 25th with a visit from representatives for BnB which included bike powered smoothies. 

Bikes not Bombs (bikesnotbombs.org) is a Boston based nonprofit that “uses the bicycle as a vehicle for social change.” Every year they collect about 6,000 used bicycles and tons of used parts from people in greater Boston and around New England.

They ship most of these bikes to their overseas to aid economic development projects in Africa, LatinAmerica and the Caribbean. Other bikes land in their youth empowerment programs where teens learn bicycle safety and mechanics skills as well as leadership, teamwork and community participation in the process of building a bike they will become their own.

Their retail bike shop reconditions bikes to sell to support their programs and employs many graduates of their programs.

Our focus was on the Cycloville project in Nairobi, Kenya
A staff member from Bikes Not Bombs (BNB) shared their mission with us in worship. Afterwards, there was Q and A time with some brief videos of some of their international projects. Cycloville is a network of cyclists and bicycle shops that is working to grow the bicycle industry of Kenya, to create employment for young people and to build the critical mass of cyclists to organize for policy and infrastructure change. Among its initiatives, Cycloville is identifying young people from Mathare slum to be trained by Cycloville. These youth have access to apprenticeship positions and employment in one of the Nairobi bike shops within the Cycloville network, as well as entrepreneurship training to develop their own small bicycle businesses.

We hosted multiple events and drives toward our goal of raising $10,000 including selling Christmas ornaments made of bike parts (!), dinner fundraisers at local restaurants and hosting a bike collection drive that collected a large number of bikes of all shapes and sizes to be re-worked into bikes for their program.

We also participated in the Bikes Not Bombs annual Bike-a-Thon !! All in all our efforts raised OVER $10,000 to go towards this terrific organization! Read more about Bikes Not Bombs and the work they are doing all over the world HERE