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Pedals for Progress provides higher standard of living

BY MARK SCHOEFF, JR.
UMCONNECTION CORRESPONDENT

Volunteers from Lindon Heights UMC in Carney collect bicycles to be sent overseas.

Bicycles can serve in many ways: as vehicles for going to school or work to providing many good memories; from a child's first ride down the street to a trip along a breathtaking mountain trail.

Keith Oberg has discovered that because bicycles have so many uses, it takes a good cause to persuade people to get rid of their old ones. But when that cause is a project that sends used bikes to poor people in developing countries, they are donated at a brisk clip.

Oberg, regional director of Pedals for Progress, said the organization is on pace to set a record of 5,000 donations this year in the Baltimore-Washington area. The group depends on about 70 organizations, more than half of which are churches, to sponsor collection activities.

'These bikes have sentimental value and people don't want to throw them out,' he said. 'They accumulate in basements.'

Pedals for Progress was established in the early 1990s to bring bikes out of retirement to raise the quality of life for people in countries including El Salvador, Eritrea, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Moldova, Pakistan and Sierra Leone.

The idea started when a group in New Jersey decided to collect bikes for people in Nicaragua.

'This began to snowball as we realized that there were a lot of people out there who didn't know what to do with their bikes,' said Oberg, who quit his federal agency job in 2000 to work full-time for Pedals.

In 13 years, the organization has collected 77,303 bikes nationwide and $8 million in new spare parts. It works with partner charities in 20 countries.
The effort grew in the Baltimore-Washington region through 'viral' marketing. A Rotary Club or church in one town would pass the idea along to groups in neighboring areas.

Each fall, St. John's Catholic and St. John's United Methodist-Presbyterian, which both worship at the Wild Lake Interfaith Center in Columbia, collect about 100 bikes. On May 15, Linden Linthicum UMC in Clarksville, gathered 37 bikes. On June 5, Wesley Freedom UMC in Eldersburg, received about 70 donations.
' It's a real feel-good thing,' said Lou Rimbach, chairman of outreach and missions at Wesley Freedom. 'It's a win-win-win situation.'

Transforming lives, which these bikes have the potential to do, is a key motivation for congregations. 'Giving a bike to a poor family in Latin America or Africa is tantamount to giving an automobile to a poor family in the States,' said Tom McCarthy, a member of St. John's Catholic who coordinates the Wild Lake collection.

The bikes, which are sold for a modest amount in the recipient countries, raise productivity by giving low-income people a means to get to work. They also are used for health care, education and social service delivery. In addition, people are trained and employed in bicycle repair.

During collection events, churches connect to their neighbors and build community. At a typical site, kids and adults work together to log in the bikes, collect the required $10 donation to help cover international shipping expenses, and take off pedals and lower handle bars to pack as many bikes as possible into shipping containers. Intangible goals are achieved through the manual labor.

'The church is always called to go beyond itself and into the world,' said the Rev. Ann Laprade, senior minister at Linden Heights UMC in Baltimore, which collected 52 bikes May 8. 'It's an illustration of stewardship that honors all of God's resources and sees recycling as a form of ministry. We work with social organizations, but we have something unique to bring to it — the faith witness.'