What do you do with your old bicycles? Leave them to rust in the garage? Toss them in the junk yard? Carolyn Wood finds a better use for them. Here’s a feel-good story to get you in the festive spirit.
Carolyn Wood is a bike mechanic with a cause. For the past three years she has been collecting people’s old bicycles, repairs them herself and then donates them to a worthy cause.
She asks people in the community to nominate an area or crčche for donation. After an inspection to see what their needs are, the sizes of bikes needed and so on, she then delivers the repaired bicycles to the excited recipients. Here is her story on this year’s bike donation…
“On Friday the 25th November we went to Zamokuhle crčche in Chesterville, Westville, KZN. I had selected this crčche this year for my bicycle donation. We went early on Friday and the kids knew that something fun was happening that day but they could not believe it when we arrived with 25 bicycles for them. I first explained to them that various people had donated them and that I had repaired them all myself for them. We prayed and gave thanks. We handed out 100 issues of Bicycling to them and they were over the moon. We split the group in half, as I had also brought 15 soccer balls, so half did soccer skills with one of my other volunteers and I helped the kids on the bikes then we swopped over. The bicycles and soccer balls will remain at the crčche for all the children to play with and to share in the fun.
I want to thank Cheron Booth and her team at Thekwini Toyota for donating money for all the spares my charity needed to repair these bicycles, as well as assisting with Transport on the day.”
No comments yet.