Chicago bike company donates thousands of bicycles to African kids

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Bikes for Lesotho has sent 4,500 bicycles to the Kingdom of Lesotho, helping children orphaned by the HIV/AIDS crisis in the small African nation.

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On Wednesday, volunteers from Christopher Burke Engineering teamed up with the organization to prepare another 500 bicycles for shipment, per ABC 7 news

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Dave Gorman created Bikes for Lesotho with the hope of making orphans smile. He also served in the Peace Corps in Lesotho, which is where his inspiration was born.

Bikes mean more kids are able to travel efficiently in Lesotho, meaning children can concentrate on their education and household duties.

Bikes for Lesotho is supported by the popular Working Bikes cooperative. They consider themselves a shop that “rescues discarded bicycles and gives them new life by redistributing them as tools of empowerment in local and global communities.”

During the Forest Preserve District of Will County’s fall “Recycle Your Bicycle” program, Working Bikes received 123 donated bicycles. The event took place at Monee Reservoir in Monee Township.

The bikes are of course refurbished for distribution to people in need locally and abroad.

To this date, October 19 2017, almost 700 bikes have been collected through the Forest Preserve’s program. Working Bikes even gave some of the bikes they collected in the spring to a veteran organization.

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Working Bikes sends 6,000 bikes world-wide each year, with an addition 1,500 donated locally.

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