San Rafael Patch gives a shout to our Africa Sister Shop projects

Many thanks to the San Rafael Patch, a great local news website, for doing this terrific blurb about our Sister Shop projects in Africa.

It's a reminder that, while we're doing what we can to bring the life-changing power of the bicycle to the people of developing countries, our efforts are home-grown and their success would not be possible without the generosity of our loyal local customers.

This Wednesday June 9, help us load container #5 in San Rafael!

We're loading another container bound for Africa with over 450 bicycles donated by customers on Wednesday, June 9. The container loading will start at 9:00am at 24 Tiburon Street, and volunteers are welcome for any part of the day.

This is the fifth container to be sent to the Sister Shop Program by Mike’s Bikes through our bicycle-focused non-profit entity, the Mike’s Bikes Foundation. The bikes’ journey to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe will take approximately 8 weeks, and there they will offer their new owners desperately needed access to health care, education, and employment.

Collected from customers at all eight Mike's Bikes stores, these donated bikes will be sent to MK Cycles, to be established this year as the third Mike's Bikes Sister Shop in Africa. Mike’s Bikes owners Ken Martin and Matt Adams created the Mike’s Bikes Foundation to realize their goal of creating a self-sustaining source of affordable bicycle transportation in sub-Saharan African communities. Starting in 2008 with their first Sister Shop in Gaborone, Botswana, then continuing to the rural village of Mutjiku, Namibia in 2009, the Foundation is excited to be opening yet another locally-owned source of green, healthy transportation in Africa.

Africa donation bike container #4 was loaded this weekend in Virginia

Yep, you read right, our fourth Africa donation bike container was loaded this weekend in the far off land of Alexandria, Virginia. This latest container will ship out to Namibia shortly, and will provide much-needed bikes for our Sister Shop MakVeto Bicycles, in addition to helping replenish community shops that are supported by our esteemed partner Bicycle Empowerment Network, Namibia.

Why Virginia? The donation bikes for this latest effort were collected by another one of our partner organizations, Virginia-based Wheels to Africa. A nonprofit founded in 2005, Wheels to Africa's focus is harnessing the power of local youth in Virginia to collect bikes for donation to Africa. The Mike's Bikes Foundation is covering shipping, ground transport, and customs charges for this latest container.

In addition to the re-supply of MakVeto, we will be supplying a portion of these donated bikes to BEN Namibia. In return, they'll send some of the only expert bike mechanics in the country to stay with Erasmus, Ludwig, and Mukena at MakVeto, and provide in-depth service training to them that our all-too-short visit could not. Stay tuned for more info on this fourth Africa bike container, and the astounding progress that MakVeto is making in the use of bicycle transportation in the Caprivi Region of Namibia.

The story of the loading of our third container of Africa bikes - told in a minute and a half

How to load 474 Bikes on a 40ft. Shipping Container from Mike's Bikes on Vimeo.

(Imagine the theme music to Benny Hill)

Back in March, we loaded 474 bikes generously donated by our customers into a shipping container bound for Gaborone, Botswana. Our third Africa bike container to date, this one is headed to Jonmol Bicycle Services, our first Africa Sister Shop that was established in 2008.

Thanks to the wild success of Jonmol, there are hundreds of people now using bicycles for transportation in Gaborone. The only drawback to getting the bikes out so quickly is that now Jonmol's proprietor Bones is in dire need of another round of affordable bicycles to offer to his community. Once again the customers of Mike's Bikes have stepped up, and this container was packed with more bikes than any we've sent to date!