Westland Elementary PTA Service Project Donates 46 Bikes To Bicycle Collective!
This is a guest post contributed to us by Hillary Moser, Westland Elementary PTA Service Project Chair.
Each year our PTA hosts a service project for our school community – and each year it’s hard to think of a project that all ages can participate in that is also truly meaningful. Come April, with the school year running out, I almost contemplated forgoing it until next year! Our PTA was already wanting to focus on how to address concerns about bicycle and pedestrian safety. We see so many students riding without helmets, and not understanding the rules of the road (whether on wheels or walking). In thinking about these concerns, we decided to host our first ever “Bikes and Blades Family Night” that would focus on education and fun!
As our family night idea started to formulate, I realized how wonderful it would be to include a bicycle collection service project for those in need. As I searched for an organization to partner with in this effort, I came across Bicycle Collective’s website – and fell in love with their mission! How wonderful to provide (or sell at reasonable prices) refurbished bikes to those in need right here in our own valley. We loved that Bicycle Collective fully embodies the idea of “reduce, reuse, recycle,” giving people a way to recycle even bikes far beyond use.
In the days leading up to the event, we started collecting bike donations from families. We had about 15 before the event started (less than we had hoped for), and it honestly was a little worrisome!
For the event, our PTA set up 11 different stations for attendees to visit throughout the evening. The West Jordan Police Department and the Utah Health Department attended to help teach our students and families how to handle different safety issues, the Utah Highway Safety Office Bicycle Rodeo Program provided a safety obstacle course for children to navigate, parent volunteers helped them learn how to care for their tires and chains while giving complementary tune-ups, and our PTA gave out fun “licenses to ride.” One of our booths was a wash station, at which we encouraged students to wash their own bike and a donated bike! Our PTA also provided Raisin’ Canes chicken fingers to all attendees, and the “Udder Rivals” ice cream truck also came for the evening!
The Westland Elementary PTA was pleased to be able to collect and donate 46 bikes to Bicycle Collective. In the end, we had about 200 people attend our family night and service project! We had many comments from parents about how glad they were to send their old bikes somewhere useful. After delivering the bikes to the Salt Lake location, the team there gave us a tour of their operations. I was beyond impressed, and even more proud to have supported such an amazing cause. We hope to continue to work with them in the future. Thank you Bicycle Collective for all that you do! I’ll be seeing you soon to come and pick out a “new” bike for my 4th grader.
