Bicycle Recycle Day
Bring your unwanted bicycle and drop it off at the First Church UCC, 1 Wellington Road, Templeton on Saturday July 30th 9:00 am - noon and it will be reused again.
Mountain, road, BMX, cruiser, old/new, antique, kids, etc. Our aim is to keep bikes from being thrown out when they can be reused.
We can pick up bicycles if you cannot get them there. For questions, please contact Dennis Wood at 508-277-7513.
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ReplyDeleteDO is STUPID has left a new comment on your post "Bicycle Recycle Day":
ReplyDeleteJust an FYI, this organization has been the subject of many articles in papers and bicycle magazines. Its a FRAUD, they take the free bikes, sell all the good ones to their bicycle dealer buddys, and the broken crappy walmart junk that is left they ship to the poor countries, but they can't repair them either. Be smart, sell your bikes outfront of your house and donate the money to a worthy cause.
By Elaine Thompson TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
ReplyDeleteJune 20. 2013 6:00AM
Misunderstanding muddles bike collection effort
Bicycle collector James Wood with some of the hundreds of bikes he has amassed.
PHOTO/ T&G Staff/STEVE LANAVA
Bicycle collector James Wood with some of the hundreds of bikes he has amassed.
A bicycle collection program for people in Ghana, backed by several area churches, has left some supporters confused about whether the bikes are being sold or given away.
Organizers of the collection are two brothers in the recycling business who regularly use church properties as their venue for seeking donations. Personnel interviewed at the churches say they understood that the collections were for the purpose of donating bicycles.
But James G. Wood of 45 Pierce Road, Sutton, and Dennis W. Wood of 6 High St., Holden, 56-year-old identical twins are not operating a charity.
The men run Green Day Recycling and sell the donated items. Some of the bikes do end up in Africa, but they are first sold to an intermediary in this country who then sells them overseas.
James Wood said it was never his or his brother's intention to mislead the churches. He said he now understands where there may have been confusion and a need to better inform the churches and donors up front about what is done with the bikes.
“We will absolutely let each and every church know up front that bikes are sold ... Yes, we do earn income from the sale of the bikes after meeting various overhead,” James Wood said.
The brothers have contacted churches and made arrangements to use the parking lot on a Saturday to collect electronics and appliances — their main business — and new and used bicycles.
In some cases, they offer the church $50 to use the parking lot. Some churches are also given some money from the electronics drop-off fees. In letters or other communications to the churches, the brothers say many of the bicycles will go to Ghana. Others, they say, will be given to inner city kids in Worcester.
A church notice that was published in the Telegram & Gazette about an electronics and bicycle recycling event James Wood held at St. Joseph Church in Auburn earlier this month solicited: “New or old mountain, BMX, adult or kids bikes collected for Ghana ... .”
Church secretary Cindy Barnaby said the church receives a small percentage of the fee James Wood charges people to drop off used electronics. He paid the church about $640 for three recycling events last year. She said that she was under the impression that the bicycles that were collected were being donated to people in Ghana.
“He (James) supposedly is donating them to Ghana. That's what we were told,” Ms. Barnaby said.
James Wood said he has never used the word donate. “The word is recycle,” he said.
Representatives of Union Church of Stow, St. Michael Church in Bedford and Our Lady-Grace Parish in Pepperell said they were also told that many of the bikes will go to Ghana. They said they did not know the Woods were making money from the bikes that people were donating.
Debbie Lackey, business manager at Our Lady-Grace Parish, said she was told that they donated the bikes to places outside the country. She was also under the impression that the brothers did not make money on the donated items.
She added that the brothers did give the church “a little bit from appliances that are recycled. It's usually a flat donation.”
Dennis Wood has listed Susan W. Rude, secretary at Union Church of Stow, as a reference on his letters to other churches for use of their parking lots. Ms. Rude said Dennis Wood has held three bicycle collections in the church parking lot. The last time was the weekend before Easter. She said she could only recall him giving the church $50 on one occasion.