88 Bikes

Mission

Bikes are environmentally friendly, practical, useful, and they can help a kids get to school or get small jobs. More importantly, bikes are fun, and provide a sense of independence and confidence. 88bikes provides bikes for kids to give them joy, and to improve their lives.

Programs

 

88bikes will endow bikes to young people in Vietnam, Nepal, India and Ghana in 2010, focused on children who have been rescued from slavery or servitude. Our goal is always to select places where 88bikes can have the most powerful impact, and likelihood for success; where the bikes can be reasonably accommodated, safely stored and kept in good repair; and where there is strong leadership in the school or orphanage receptive to the project.

Once a location is selected, 88bikes reaches out using e-mail, social networking sites, and the personal networks of the founders, and collects donations from sponsors through its web site. Each donation is $88 dollars, the approximate cost of a bike in most developing countries. Each sponsor also provides their name (or the name of a friend, if it is a gift), along with a photo of the donor. A list of all Sponsors is posted to the web site.

After the donations are raised, 88bikes travels to the project site in person. New bikes are purchased in-country from local merchants. Any required labor for transportation, assembly, or assistance is also hired locally, so that the project funds are used to benefit the local economy. All Sponsor bicycle donations are used to purchase and assemble the bikes, and for local transportation, so that 100% of the donated money goes directly to the local economy and to the bike donation. All other costs, such as setting up on-site 88bikeshops in various countries, running bike repair workshops, orchestrating bike repair apprenticeships, IT, travel, 88bikes volunteer programs, administrative costs and overhead are paid for by the Endowment Fund. Additional costs are paid for by the founders. 88bikes is entirely volunteer-staffed; no one, including the founders, receives salary or compensation of any kind; 88bikes does not maintain an office.

Each child is given their bike in person from the founders, on behalf of the individual Sponsor who donated their bike, along with a postcard that shows the Sponsor, a world map, and the Sponsor’s hometown. Photos and film of the project are made available to the Sponsors, and each Sponsor receives a thank-you letter with a photo of the child who received their bike.