When I returned from Vietnam I called the Perth Art Gallery Cafe to check my work hours. I was excited to be productive after some rest and relaxation. Unfortunately, I was informed that the weekend work had slowed considerably because the main exhibit at the Art Gallery had ended and the hot weather had driven a lot of people to the beach. So the more permanent staff were being given preference on the limited hours. Back to looking for a job...
My weekdays are typically my weekends and vice versa. With no work available, I felt like I should do something productive. Coincidentally, one of my co-workers, Damon, was looking for volunteers for a charity called Bikes4Life. I could try to explain the organization to you in my own words, but the folks who created the website probably thought a lot harder about it: Bikes4Life is a global community initiative that is dedicated to providing bicycles to people, particularly youth, who are underprivileged, aimed at helping the most vulnerable, isolated, and neglected groups within society. Volunteering would be a perfect opportunity to be productive while doing some good in the world.
Damon had done the hard work: PR for the paper and local news, talking to interested donors, getting their details, mapping out where bikes were located, finding volunteers, organizing transport and bicycle repair gurus, and finding the massive amount of storage needed to refurbish the bikes before being shipped out. My job would be to help collect the bikes from people who've already pledged a bicycle donation. Too easy.
On Saturday morning, I met up with Damon (Dame-O) and the other volunteers, Johnathan (John-O), Tim, and Tina. There was a short little planning period and then we hit the road. John and Damon would collect bikes in the northwest of the city using the black pick-up truck (i.e. a ute). Tim, Tina and I would team up in the moving truck and collect bikes in the northeastern part of the city.
Once in the truck, we all naturally fell into our roles. I didn't know the city well enough to navigate and I couldn't drive since I lost my wallet and drivers license while travelling. That meant I was the caller -- I garnered my slightly higher-pitched chatty voice and started scheduling pick-ups. Tina was the navigator because she knew the area best -- plus, have you ever seen a woman operate a truck? (That's a bad joke, obviously. Sorry). She used a map book, um, like a paper one instead of a digital version that talks to you. How strange! But let me say this: navigating with a real map feels way more adventurous than using a GPS device. Finally, that meant that friendly Tim, with his "friendly mutton chop" style beard (yes, that is the technical name), would be the driver or else we were going to have a very long day.
The morning started slowly, but once we figured out a routine and got a realistic idea of how long each pick-up would take, it was easy. Probably 90% of the people donating bikes were elderly who could no longer ride a bicycle or whose grandchildren had grown-up. That meant a lot of the bikes were quite old, perhaps 40 or 50 years old, or out-of-style kids' bikes. Anyway, I'm sure they'll find a good home and make a child happy.
Around noon, we had a pick-up near Tina's house. Her house was a convenient place to stock up on water on such a hot day. I didn't expect that food would be offered, but when Tina put containers of homemade Indian curry chicken, hearty wheat bread, Greek yogurt, and something akin to pico de gallo on the counter, I couldn't help myself. Best sandwich I've had in Australia. The spiciness of the curry, the cooling effect of the yogurt, the herb flavors from the pico. Thinking of it makes me salivate. If charity organizations offered sandwiches like that all the time to their volunteers, there'd be a surplus of volunteers and the world would be a better place.
We only picked up seven bikes in the morning, but the afternoon was much more productive. We had a good rhythm and worked quickly so we could escape from the heat to go back inside the air-conditioned truck cabin. By the end of the day we had picked up 30 bikes but two were salvaged from a trash collection we passed while looking for another house.
The largest single donation was five bikes and a tricycle, but the bikes were so old and rusted out that I'd probably revise that figure to 2.5 bikes. The sweetest bike was the purple low-rider pictured below. The nicest bike was a legit mountain bike worth $500 or $600 dollars -- the donor also offered us freshly made mango sorbet.
After six hours of collecting bikes, all we had to do was bring them to the storage location. We made quick work of that and then celebrated with a beer back at the meeting house. A pretty productive day and I had a lot of fun driving around with Tim and Tina. Oh, and the best sandwich ever.
On Saturday morning, I met up with Damon (Dame-O) and the other volunteers, Johnathan (John-O), Tim, and Tina. There was a short little planning period and then we hit the road. John and Damon would collect bikes in the northwest of the city using the black pick-up truck (i.e. a ute). Tim, Tina and I would team up in the moving truck and collect bikes in the northeastern part of the city.
Once in the truck, we all naturally fell into our roles. I didn't know the city well enough to navigate and I couldn't drive since I lost my wallet and drivers license while travelling. That meant I was the caller -- I garnered my slightly higher-pitched chatty voice and started scheduling pick-ups. Tina was the navigator because she knew the area best -- plus, have you ever seen a woman operate a truck? (That's a bad joke, obviously. Sorry). She used a map book, um, like a paper one instead of a digital version that talks to you. How strange! But let me say this: navigating with a real map feels way more adventurous than using a GPS device. Finally, that meant that friendly Tim, with his "friendly mutton chop" style beard (yes, that is the technical name), would be the driver or else we were going to have a very long day.
The morning started slowly, but once we figured out a routine and got a realistic idea of how long each pick-up would take, it was easy. Probably 90% of the people donating bikes were elderly who could no longer ride a bicycle or whose grandchildren had grown-up. That meant a lot of the bikes were quite old, perhaps 40 or 50 years old, or out-of-style kids' bikes. Anyway, I'm sure they'll find a good home and make a child happy.
Around noon, we had a pick-up near Tina's house. Her house was a convenient place to stock up on water on such a hot day. I didn't expect that food would be offered, but when Tina put containers of homemade Indian curry chicken, hearty wheat bread, Greek yogurt, and something akin to pico de gallo on the counter, I couldn't help myself. Best sandwich I've had in Australia. The spiciness of the curry, the cooling effect of the yogurt, the herb flavors from the pico. Thinking of it makes me salivate. If charity organizations offered sandwiches like that all the time to their volunteers, there'd be a surplus of volunteers and the world would be a better place.
We only picked up seven bikes in the morning, but the afternoon was much more productive. We had a good rhythm and worked quickly so we could escape from the heat to go back inside the air-conditioned truck cabin. By the end of the day we had picked up 30 bikes but two were salvaged from a trash collection we passed while looking for another house.
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| The truck filled with 30 bikes. |
The largest single donation was five bikes and a tricycle, but the bikes were so old and rusted out that I'd probably revise that figure to 2.5 bikes. The sweetest bike was the purple low-rider pictured below. The nicest bike was a legit mountain bike worth $500 or $600 dollars -- the donor also offered us freshly made mango sorbet.
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| The purple low-rider with a velvet banana seat. This bike will instantaneously make a kid in Africa the coolest in his entourage. |
After six hours of collecting bikes, all we had to do was bring them to the storage location. We made quick work of that and then celebrated with a beer back at the meeting house. A pretty productive day and I had a lot of fun driving around with Tim and Tina. Oh, and the best sandwich ever.
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| From left to right, Tina, Tim, John-o and Dame-o posing in front of the storage garage after adding the days hull to the pile. |
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