Ghanaians in Africa will be getting transportation vital to their daily lives through donations of used bicycles solicited by Wheatley School students this year.
The latest phase of the Wheatley Afri-Bike Coalition’s effort to collect bicycles for a rural village in Ghana got off to a flying start with nearly 100 bike donations accepted by Wheatley School students last Friday and Saturday in front of the high school, according to Steven Finkelstein, the project’s faculty advisor.
“It’s huge tool in a developing country. Our toys are their valuable technology,” Finkelstein said. “It’s a status symbol if you have a bike over there.”
Finkelstein, who teaches AP environmental science and other science courses at Wheatley, said the Afri-Bike coalition’s goal is to collect 500 bikes to ship to Ghana by next spring. He said the impact is easy to comprehend when one considers that many parents in Ghana can’t afford 10 cents a day for a child to take a bus to school.
This year. Finkelstein said, the Wheatley Afri-Bike Coalition, which includes members of the high school’s Intercultural Unity Club and the World Affairs Club, is collaborating with Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization Pedals for Progress to makes its collections.
“We give people a choice who don’t have any,” said Wheatley senior Adriana Cohn, the co-president of the Afri-Bike coalition.
The last shipment the Wheatley students made was 550 bikes in May 2012, Finkelstein said. Since 1999, he said the Wheatley Afri-Bike Coalition has collected processes, and sent more than 2,500 bikes to Ghana and raised more than $30,000 for shipping.
Finkelstein said community support has grown steadily over the years by word of mouth and the Wheatley students’ efforts to publicize the project’s goal to collect bikes, bike parts, tools and accessories. Finkelstein said contributions have come from the Willistons, Roslyn, Mineola, New Hyde Park, Garden City Park, Great Neck, and as far away as Astoria, Brooklyn and Patchogue.
“There’s been a learning curve. Now the community gets it. Our trash is someone else’s treasure,” Finkelstein said.
Now he said, he gets phone calls every month from someone in the community asking if the students are still collecting bikes. Mineola Bicycle & Mower has supported the effort too, and is contributing 10 bicycles to this year’s campaign, Finkelstein said.
He said Wheatley is looking to expand support for the program from schools in other districts.
After collecting the bikes, they are prepared for shipment by removing the pedals and loosening the handlebars.
“It’s a lot of hard work. The feeling when you close the doors on that shipping container after several months of working on it is a great feeling,” Cohn said.
Wheatley senior Shannon Murphy, co-vice president of the Afri-Bike coalition, said, “It’s great knowing you’ve changed someone’s life for the rest of their life.”
Cohn and Murphy are carrying on family traditions as both have older siblings who were also part of the Afri-Bike project while at Wheatley.
Finkelstein, a bike enthusiast, said the Afri-Bike idea took root after he saw a group called “Bikes Not Bombs” performing at the annual Clearwater Festival on the Hudson River. Members of the group suggested sending bicycles instead of weapons to third-world countries.
“Bicycles are still the most efficient form of [human] transportation ever invented,” Finkelstein said.
Wheatley students collected 200 bikes the first time around in 1999, aided by a non-profit called the Village Bicycle Project that provided assistance in shipping the bikes. A musician friend of Finkelstein’s told him about a village named Kopeyia in Ghana where a school had recently been built.
Finkelstein said he was subsequently contacted by David Peckham of the Village Bicycle Project, a non-profit that also collects bikes for donation to Africa and has shipped 74,000 bikes to African countries since 1999.
Packham heard about the Wheatley initiative and offered to help get the bikes to the village.
The two men met in Africa that first year when the bikes were delivered successfully, and an enduring partnership was cemented.
Last weekend was the first of three weekends the Afri-Bike coalition will be collecting this year.
Finkelsteins said the next weekend collection at The Wheatley School is scheduled for Dec. 6-8.
