A Bicycle Is Born

Learning about Project Rwanda

(L - R) Ben Clark, Lisa Clark and Jake Unveil

Our students learned about Project Rwanda last Thursday. Our special guests have extensive experience with the program: Jay Ritchey spent a year in Rwanda, helping coffee farmers acquire the bikes and assisting mechanics with assembly; Ben and Lisa Clark, co-managers of the Scallywags Bike Shop in Minneapolis, MN, have visited Rwanda numerous times, working with families to better understand the benefits of the coffee bike; Jake Unveil has been instrumental in coordinating the assembly process from the Scallywags headquarters.

While some of our students are familiar with having to go without, we thought it important to introduce them to the fact that an average Rwandan person makes $200 a year, and that bicycles are precious to them. With 500,000 coffee farmers in Rwanda, a country the size of Maryland, sturdy bicycles make all the difference between barely scraping by to earning a premium for fresher coffee cherries. Young families also use the coffee bikes as transportation, much like a station wagon or minivan.

Earn-A-Bike volunteers Matty and Dan test ride a Project Rwanda coffee bike


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