Carissa Barry, President of Daro Management, described the endeavor: “As part of our social responsibility endeavors as a community, our team at Daro and our residents consistently seek and embrace green initiatives and ways to give back to the greater community. We wanted to donate the bikes that were left behind, and find them all good homes, but that would not be possible until we could first find a way to repair them. In that search, we found that Gearin’ Up Bicycle could not only provide a platform to repair and recycle our abandoned bikes for reuse, but they could also do so in a way that would provide even more positive and lasting dividends by providing training and experiential education to youth in our greater community.”
Sterling Stone, Executive Director of Gearin’ Up Bicycle, continued: “I was eager to help Carissa when she came to us with Daro’s dilemma. Many of the unwanted bikes were in disrepair and couldn’t be donated in their current condition. Problems like these are ideal for us to solve. Our youth trainees and apprentices at Gearin’ Up Bicycle shop are teenagers from underserved communities. They are eager to learn how to rebuild and refurbish these bikes before selling them, and they generally enjoy and thrive when offered an opportunity to build essential work skills and collaborate in our program.”
All revenue from the sale of the refurbished bikes is reinvested to support ongoing programming and apprentices at Gearin’ Up Bicycle.