Bikes into Africa

T.A. is collecting your unwanted bicycles for Bikes for Africa, a program sponsored by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. Bicycle drop-off sites are located at the Recycle-A-Bicycle (RAB) shops. Storage is donated by the Queens' based community organization, Astoria Residents Reclaiming Our World. Once the bicycles are collected, youth participants of Recycle-A-Bicycle "flatten" them for shipping (remove pedals and turn handlebars). Ten young people from the Variety Boys and Girls Club of Queens, Inc. are earning a bike for processing up to 350 bicycles. Shipping will be donated by the Pentagon's Office of Humanitarian and Refugee Affairs and the bicycles will be given to the Afrika Cultural Centre, based in Johannesburg-South Africa. The goal is to inaugurate the first international Recycle-A-Bicycle project in which disadvantaged youth will benefit from the environmental education and job training offered through the program.