Help needed to load bikes to El Salvador, Saturday June 28th, 2008

My pal Meg Watson from the Village Bicycle Project forwarded me the note below. Meg, Dave and all the others at VPB do wonderful work (check their website for details) and these bike load sessions are always super fun. I'll be taking Saturday off from the shop to help out and if any of you Seattle area folks can come on down, we'd love the help. You can see pictures from previous bike loading parties here and here.

-----Original Message-----
From: Village Bicycle Project [mailto:ghanabikes@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2008 9:54 AM
To: vbp@pcei.org
Subject: Collecting and Loading bikes June 28

Greetings,

Help us load nearly 500 bikes for CESTA (the El Salvadoran Center for Appropriate Technology). Loading is at the Total Reclaim warehouse, in Georgetown, (directions below). We'll start at 9, and finish by 5 PM. Refreshments will be provided.

We are also accepting donations of ADULT and adolescent (24" wheels) sized bikes. Please no children's bikes, we have too many now.

Our new partners in El Salvador have gotten bikes from Bikes Not Bombs in Boston and Bikes for the World in the DC area. Both BNB and B4W send bikes to VBP partners in Ghana. The rising cost of shipping has encouraged us bike collectors and shippers to economize. We will send more to Pacific side receivers, and the East Coast will send more across the Atlantic.

Here is a bit from an interview with CESTA's director, printed in Red Pepper, April 2007 http://www.redpepper.org.uk/ (and accessed today at bikesnotbombs.org)

"From global climate change to pedal-powered garbage carts, thinking globally and acting locally comes readily to El Salvador's Ricardo Navarro." He recently found himself meeting then-World Bank president,James Wolfensohn, to demand that the bank scale back its investment for fossil fuel exploitation and mining. "The best birthday present President Wolfensohn could give to the world's poor would be to stop bank funding of fossil fuel and mining projects and invest in wind and solar," he said. [more on line]

Hope to see you! Special thanks to all who've helped collect and load more than 1400 bikes already this spring in Seattle, Sammamish and Bellingham.

dave

DIRECTIONS to the loading:

By bike from Beacon Hill, go south on 15th Street and cross the freeway at Albro Pl. then take the first left. You'll be on Corgiat, go about half-mile, the road curves sharply to the right, then you'll see the warehouse, 1915 on the left. If you keep going you'll be on the railroad tracks.

Driving from downtown Seattle, take I-5 south about four miles to Albro Pl. Swift Dr. exit 161. Go straight at the off-ramp traffic light, you'll be on Corgiat, go about half-mile, the road curves sharply to the right, then you'll see the warehouse 1915 on the left. Keep going and you'll be on the railroad tracks.

From Tacoma on I-5 take Albro Pl. Swift Dr. exit 161turn left, cross over the freeway then take the first left you'll be on Corgiat, go about half-mile, the road curves sharply to the right, then you'll see the warehouse 1915 on the left.

website pcei.org/vbp

Village Bicycle Project is a program of Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute, pcei.org