Don’t throw away that old mountain bike! Dave Schweidenback will recycle it for you and, at the same time, distribute it to someone in a developing country in need of wheels. Since 1991, Schweidenback’s organization, Pedals for Progress, has rescued over 115,000 bicycles, 1,000 sewing machines and $11M in spare parts from overburdened U.S. landfills and shipped them to impoverished people in 32 countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. When he was serving in the Peace Corps from 1977-80, Schweidenback lived in a tiny settlement with a hunter-gatherer tribe known as the Shwar while he worked as a land surveyor, surveying tribal lands for the region’s indigenous people. This role was critical because the citizens had no title to their ancestral lands and risked losing them. He would fly to tiny villages throughout the region, some of which had airstrips, to map the land. The plane would leave him for a month or two at a time while he surveyed what the local people considered to be their land –anything within one day’s walk of their house. He noticed that “besides the bus that comes through town and one guy that owned a pickup truck, everybody walked everywhere all of the time, ” he recalls. “My landlord was the exception because he owned the only bike in a 500-mile radius. He was the most successful man in the region because he could access a job and get wherever he needed to go.”
That was when he discovered that they all walked everywhere, and that if they had humanity’s greatest invention – the wheel – they could improve their quality of life. This is why he started Pedals for Progress, a New Jersey-based non-profit organization. Pedals for Progress’ goal is to recycle over half of the 5 million discarded bicycles per year and get them to poverty-stricken people in developing countries to enable them to get to work, obtain services, and meet other basic needs. By distributing bicycles in rural areas of the developing world, he reports that he can increase the income by 14% and create an important new force in the local economy. The organization also empowers local people in those communities to open bike shops and serve as a source of bicycles and repair for bicycle owners. At Tonic, we appreciate people who see a problem and then craft a solution. Dave Schweidenback is one of these “solvers” and our Hero of the Week. You can’t do better than that! 
Source: CNN and Peace Corps Polygot Photo source: CNN and Pedals for Progress Every week, we at Tonic News identify someone out in our huge world doing good and making a difference. We like to think that we all can be heroes and want the stories of these awesome people to inspire you. If you have nominations for our Tonic Generation’s Hero of the Week, please email Dan at dan[at]tonic.com.
