Last week we finished 130 more 26” and larger bikes and conducted our first giveaway, for 160 children in Howard County Head Start programs. We had a terrific volunteer turnout for both refurbishing and the giveaway event, and as a result posted the largest one-week total of volunteer hours so far this year—384!
Race Pace mechanics have been in our shop all week giving the bikes one final safety check. They’ve worked through more than 800 bikes so far, and only a few bikes with issues have been identified so far.
All of our bikes have now been cleaned and almost all have had initial prep work done, so we’ve reduced the number of cleaning slots on our sign up page. We can still use the folks who do sign up to prepare the site for our big Giveaway Day on December 11. Setting aside bikes we have scrapped as unrepairable, and bikes we have already donated, we only have a few dozen bikes left to refurbish, but these are the toughest cases in the building.
We expect to host as many as 1100 recipients on Giveaway Day December 11. We could still use volunteers, especially during the 3-6 PM shifts; sign up at fb4kmaryland.org/volunteer. Our remaining bikes will be delivered to, or picked up by, area nonprofits during the following week.
