{"id":45860,"date":"2019-04-16T05:00:25","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=45860"},"modified":"2021-06-03T14:49:32","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T21:49:32","slug":"bike-drive-changes-hundreds-of-lives-in-connecticut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/cycle\/bike-drive-changes-hundreds-of-lives-in-connecticut","title":{"rendered":"Bike drive changes hundreds of lives in Connecticut"},"content":{"rendered":"

What do you do when customers continue to ask if they can drop off bikes to donate? If you\u2019re the teams at the REI stores in Norwalk, Milford and West Hartford, Connecticut, you go out and find some awesome partners in the community and hold a bike drive.<\/p>\n

Mason Trumble, Outdoor Programs and Experiences Market Coordinator for Hartford and New Haven, helped get the first Connecticut bike drive started in 2017. \u201cWe found two great partners and decided to make it a state-wide thing,\u201d he explains. They created an event that made it easy for members to drop off bikes at REI. The community partner co-ops fix up the donated bikes and match them to people who could use them for safe and healthy transportation.<\/p>\n

Bike Drive partner Bradley Street Bike Co-op in New Haven, gets bikes to people who cannot afford them. \u201cWe specifically focus on adults and job access. In our part of the state, bikes are a very important form of transportation,\u201d says director John Martin.\u00a0 \u201cCars are prohibitively expensive, buses are often late or don’t go to the right place, and the train suffers from both problems. Bikes are incredibly cheap, and getting a bike to a refugee being served at Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services who landed one week ago, or a low income mental health patient at Connecticut Mental Health Center, or a young man who just out of prison working at Emerge, changes lives every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Father and daughter making a donation<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cPeople can get to the grocery store quicker, get to their job without being late, and save thousands of dollars a year by not owning a car,\u201d John continues. \u201cAnd when you are only making thousands of dollars a year, that matters.\u201d He also points to the beneficial mental and physical effects of riding a bike. \u201cWe know that our climate is changing, and our consumption is at the root of the problem. Moving around your town or city on a used bike is about as low-impact as we can be. And we think that riding bikes is fun!\u201d<\/p>\n

Other bike drive partners include BiCiCo, part of the\u00a0Center for Latino Progress<\/a> in Hartford. It provides opportunities to improve youth and adult safety and sustainable transportation through youth programs, mechanics classes, job training and bicycles. Bici is short for bicicleta (bicycle) and Co. stands for comunidad (community). Northeast Community Cycles, serving Fairfield County, CT supplies free, refurbished bicycles, along with a new helmet, to underprivileged children and adults.<\/p>\n

The first drive was held in May 2017, to coincide with Bike Month. \u201cWe thought we\u2019d get five or ten bike donations,\u201d says Mason. They ended up with 100. \u201cMembers were super generous and appreciative,\u201d he continues, noting that most of the donations were high quality nice bikes, with only a few junkers.<\/p>\n

The stories that came with the bikes were heartwarming. One member brought in a bike that he used to trek across the country while in college. Another donated the bike of a spouse who had passed away, hoping that it could be given to someone who could use it.<\/p>\n

John\u2019s favorite stories are when a bike donation turns someone into a regular visitor and volunteer at the Bradley Street Bike Co-op. \u201cWe believe in diverse and fun spaces, and act both as a bicycle co-op and a community center. We love that our space is filled with people working side by side with those who got bikes from us, which is often the case many days of the week.\u201d John remembers giving a bike to a woman experiencing homelessness last fall. Through the winter, John would often see her at City Hall meetings and hearings and say hi. \u201cI know that bike ownership had little to do with her want to be there – that was entirely self made – but her bike locked up outside humbly helped her get to each meeting, and probably saved her some time and (hopefully) put a smile on her face in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Employees from the West Hartford REI with the truckload of donations<\/p><\/div>\n

Now in its third year, the response to the drive continues to grow. \u201cIt\u2019s been amazing. People really care,\u201d says Mason. \u201cOur members are very generous and eager to join us in our philanthropy.\u201d This year\u2019s drive will be held in April to coincide with the Bike Sale.<\/p>\n

Mason offers the following advice to any store considering a bike drive. \u201cThe number one thing that made this successful was finding the right nonprofits that are super engaged in the local community,\u201d he says. \u201cThey are organized, involved and able to draw from a pool of volunteers.\u201d The organizations also need to be able to cross-promote with REI. \u201cThe message is really powerful when it comes from multiple channels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, Mason believes that the bike drive is a great example of an authentic way to ask our members to partner with us in giving back. \u201cThey are looking for ways to do that,\u201d he says. \u201cI personally was blown away by the generosity. It didn\u2019t cost us anything other than a little social media. The payback is huge.\u201d He hopes this story will inspire others to hold bike drives, or go for something bigger. \u201cI think it would be fun to do a national bike drive!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do you do when customers continue to ask if they can drop off bikes to donate? If you\u2019re the teams at the REI stores in Norwalk, Milford and West Hartford, Connecticut, you go out and find some awesome partners in the community and hold a bike drive. Mason Trumble, Outdoor Programs and Experiences Market […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":45861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[25,1866,1528,1484],"internal-tag":[],"class_list":["post-45860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cycle","tag-cycle","tag-inclusion","tag-northeast","tag-staff-society"],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/rei.com\/blog\/cycle\/bike-drive-changes-hundreds-of-lives-in-connecticut","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Bike drive changes hundreds of lives in Connecticut","url":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/cycle\/bike-drive-changes-hundreds-of-lives-in-connecticut","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/cycle\/bike-drive-changes-hundreds-of-lives-in-connecticut"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/04\/Content_Team_071018_0071_converted.jpg?resize=150%2C150","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/04\/Content_Team_071018_0071_converted.jpg?fit=6720%2C4480"},"articleSection":"Cycle","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Chapman"}],"creator":["Laura Chapman"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Uncommon Path \u2013 An REI Co-op Publication","logo":""},"keywords":["cycle","inclusion","northeast","staff society"],"dateCreated":"2019-04-16T12:00:25Z","datePublished":"2019-04-16T12:00:25Z","dateModified":"2021-06-03T21:49:32Z"},"rendered":"