Did You Know You Can Donate Bikes to Decatur Active Living?
Decatur Metro | November 16, 2012A reader reminded me of a program that’s been around a while that perhaps was not on everyone’s radar: Decatur Active Living’s bike donation program. Director Greg White was good enough to recap the history and ins and outs of the program.
The bike donation was started when we started the Safe Routes to School program in 2007 so that we would have enough bikes for training students how to ride safely. We started with a bike donation from the police department with about 20 bikes.
Over the past years parents and individuals from the community have given us bikes. The Fraternal Order of Police has given us new bikes and Sopo Bikes has provided donations. We currently have a fleet in the neighborhood of over 30 bikes. The Police Department has identified all of the bikes in case they are lost or stolen to assist with recovery. Decatur Active Living would like 20” bikes that are used during the training of all the fourth graders at the 4/5 Academy at 5thAvenue. Bikes that need repairing are repaired by Bicycle South who does our annual maintenance prior to delivering the bikes to the school.
The fleet of bikes are delivered by Decatur Active Living staff and during the training the City of Decatur School system allow us to store the bikes on the school grounds. To donate a bike please contact Gregory White () or Cheryl Burnette (
). Phone: .
I know they are asking for 20″ bikes, but will they accept 16″ for the little ones?
i would think so!
Hi from Bicycle South.
Bikes with 20″ wheels are the best as the students are at the age and height where this size bike fits them the best. 16″ wheel bikes are really too small and we have plenty of those. On the other hand, we could use some 24″ wheel bikes as we’re looking to expand things and middle schoolers usually need the larger wheel size. We helped out with a Renfroe ride to Stone Mountain (and back) last month and needed some loaner bikes.
Thanks!
Thanks for your involvement Mr. Boykin! I second the call for larger bikes. I have a 5ft 4th grader who had a really hard time with the small bikes. I love the bike safety program. I feel so much better about him riding around town after this class. It is so wonderful and unique, truly Decatur.
We’re glad to do it. It’s a great program. Bikes can be dropped off at the store too – that makes it pretty easy! Any bikes that are too rough to fix up we donate to the Fugees Family program out in Clarkston and they use them for parts. We take care of their bikes too -anything they can’t fix, we do it for them. Bicycle South is located at N. Decatur & Clairmont.