The Swan City Rotary club is hoping to collect 300 hundred bikes for the community of San Felipe in Chile.
Project Manager Dan Wong says they will be collecting unwanted bikes abandoned at local landfills, and they have asked the city for a donation of unclaimed stolen bicycles collected by bylaw enforcement.
“We appealed to the city to see if we could get their bicycles that were abandoned, or stolen property that was recovered through city bylaw enforcement. They have to advertise that they have them for a period of thirty days so the owner can claim them. If not, they typically take them to auction, and they have a ton left over. So we were hoping that we could send those remaining bicycles to Chile for our project.”
Wong says while San Filipe is roughly the same size as Grande Prairie, many of the working class people who live there can’t afford a vehicle, and could really use some wheels to get to and from work.
City Council still has to approve to donation at their next meeting.
If they do, then the recovered bikes will be advertised for 30 days before being turned over to the Rotary Club.