Fort Collins Bike Co-op, others support Village Bicycle Project
Opinion Piece
As Albert Einstein once said, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
That’s where Village Bicycle Project and supporting groups such as the Fort Collins Bike Co-op come into play to ensure people in need can strike a balance in their lives with refurbished rides.
For people a world away, the value of a good bike goes well beyond recreational pursuits; bicycles often help to ease poverty by improving access to farms, markets, jobs, schools and health care.
Recently, members of the Fort Collins Bike Co-op packed hundreds of abandoned and donated bikes into a shipping container destined for Ghana through Village Bicycle Project.
Since its start in 1999, this international effort has provided 36,000 bicycles, taught 5,500 people about bicycle maintenance and distributed 15,000 tools in 12 African countries.
Through its involvement with the project, the Fort Collins Bike Co-op has continued to educate people about the environmental benefits of a good bike and has helped to keep our regional landfills free of discarded rides.
We salute this effort and hope there will be more localized initiatives to help people around the world find balance and keep moving forward on two wheels.
