It was a drizzly day last Saturday. Due to the planned fireworks, West Norriton decided to postpone 'West Norriton Day' celebrations until Sunday when the weather was better. But the 'Bike Collection' went on anyway since the event was pre-advertised and we had made truck arrangements with Pedals for Progress coming from New Jersey. Their schedule this time of year is pretty tight. And more often than not, our drives have occurred on rainy spring Saturdays.
It was a good collection. We picked up the bikes we had collected all year and loaded the truck and headed to the high school. We had numerous visitors dropping bikes at the high school including some looking for the fireworks. Pedals for Progress provided training on breaking down a bike to make it small for shipping.
We processed the new bikes coming in and with 15 minutes to go, we started to break down the tent, and another donor came with 5 bikes. But we have plenty of help from Dave Shoemaker, Judy Bucko, Jack Rule, and Alan Treisbach and made quick work of it.
This is our 15th year collecting bicycles. Rotarian Jim Jones began this project originally in 2008. Around 2012 we started collecting bikes year round. Collections were down during the pandemic and are only now starting to come back.
This year we collected 65 bikes and 2 sewing machines saved from the landfill. The bikes are headed to the country of Belize in June and will become family transportation where they have no cars nor public transportation.
These bikes and sewing machines mean remote jobs and education and help the environment by keeping clean energy bicycles out of our landfills.
