The Park City Sunrise Rotary Club and The Bicycle Collective will be teaming up this weekend for a bicycle donation drive to help give old bikes a second lease on life.
If you have an old bike that has been doing nothing but collect dust over the past few years, this weekend will be your chance to donate it towards a good cause. On Saturday, August 8, The Bicycle Collective in partnership with the Park City Sunrise Rotary Club will be conducting a bicycle donation drive from 9am-noon at over 10 participating bike shops in Summit and Wasatch County.
The Tour de Sunrise has been a traditional part of the annual Summit County Fair for years, but with COVID-19 concerns forcing the cancellation of the 2020 fair and the Tour de Sunrise with it, the rotary club had to get creative.
Cheryl Butler is the Community Service Director of the Park City Sunrise Rotary Club and said despite the disappointment of losing this year’s Tour de Sunrise and bicycle parade to the pandemic, the rotary club still wanted to find a unique way to serve the community.
“We wanted to do something for community service and this proposal came up to work with The Bicycle Collective and it just seemed to fit perfectly," she said. "On the day we had scheduled for Tour de Sunrise, we are now doing a bicycle drive.”
The Bicycle Collective is a collection of four non-profit bike shops in Salt Lake City, Ogden, Provo, and St. George that refurbish and upcycle thousands of donated bicycles each year. In particular, the collective looks to provide bikes to local communities in need like immigrants, refugees, and children.
Donna McAleer is the Executive Director of The Bicycle Collective and hopes residents of the Wasatch Back who might have an old bike or two sitting in the garage will think about donating.
“We give bikes a second life," she said. "We’re like a value-added thrift store. Bikes last a really long time and the great thing is that bicycles are a great way to get exercise, to be socially distant, to enjoy adventure and exploration and we don’t want to see any bikes end up in landfills or garbage cans. We make as best use as we can. Last year we gave away more than 1,300 bikes to people around the state and we recycled about 27 tons of metal and six tons of rubber.”
McAleer says after the bikes have been dropped off at the shop, The Bicycle Collective’s team of professional mechanics and expert volunteers will get to work repairing the bikes. If your bike cannot be repaired, The Bicycle Collective will strip it for parts and recycle whatever can’t be reused.
In addition to full bicycles, McAleer says The Bicycle Collective will also be accepting spare bike parts as part of Saturday’s donation drive. The full list of participating bike shops, which is being updated daily, can be found on the Park City Sunrise Rotary Club’s Facebook page.
