We are about halfway through December and just about done with all the Holiday Wishes bicycles. We will be making deliveries this weekend. So far we have repaired and given away 366 bicycles, and gave an additional 270 (not repaired) to other charities, for a grand total of 636! That is way beyond last year’s total of 532! We still have a number of bicycles to give away yet this year, so the total will climb. I don’t know if we can hit 700, but we will try.
We have two more Wednesday work nights this month – the 14th and 21st. The fun starts at 6 PM and runs until about 9. We just received a large gruppo of adult mountain bicycles that are pretty much ready to go, so tonight we will be test riding them and reassigning them to orders on our wait list. We are making rapid progress on the wait list, which is down to 55. We want to wipe it out by the end of January, and if we continue to get the volunteers we have been getting, we can do it. Once the wait list is done, we will start building bicycles to be ready for the spring rush so we don’t get so far behind.
We plan to throw the biggest ever tear-down party in January. We don’t have a date yet, but it will most likely be on a Friday night at the Maplewood Free Bikes 4 Kidz site. They have well over 100 bicycles to tear down. We will be harvesting parts and providing stripped metal that FB4K can sell to raise money for their cause. Here is a chance to help two bike charities with just one effort! I’ll post the deets as soon as I have it arranged.
Huge thanks to our volunteers for all the great work at getting bicycles ready to give away. We can’t do it without you.