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The Kelly Benefit Strategies team goes to Africa, while Kona AfricaBikes go to Vietnam
As the 2009 season draws to a close, a few companies and teams are extending their efforts across the world in various charitable endeavors. Kelly Benefit Strategies riders traveled to Africa in support of World Bicycle Relief, and Kona’s Africabikes program is reaching farther than ever, partnering with Roadmonkey Adventure philanthropy to provide bikes to students in Vietnam.
Four Kelly riders traveled halfway around the world earlier this month, not for a race, but to see firsthand the impact of their team’s season-long fundraising effort for World Bicycle Relief.
The KBS team has been raising funds and awareness for WBR through a variety of initiatives and events the whole season, starting in May with a fundraiser that netted more than $40,000.
KBS athletes Scott Zwizanski, Neil Shirley, Reid Mumford and Alex Candelario made the 12-day trip to Zambia, along with team title sponsor, John Kelly, President of Kelly Benefit Strategies and his daughter Allie. KBS chairman Senator Francis Kelly and World Bicycle Relief President and SRAM Corporation Founder F.K Day also traveled with the riders. The objective was to demonstrate the impact World Bicycle Relief and its low-cost bicycle relief programs have on helping people in developing nations improve their access to healthcare, education and economic development.
In a press release prior to the trip, Kelly said, “It’s incredible when you see the impact access to the reliable transportation a bicycle affords for people in struggling, underdeveloped countries. In villages and remote locations, a bike can be the key to getting children to school and transporting goods for sale, which equals food on the table.”
During the trip, the KBS athletes toured the distribution center of the World Vision-led RAPIDS project – World Bicycle Relief’s partner in delivering 23,000 bicycles in support of volunteer, community based HIV/AIDS caregivers in the past three years. They also spent time assembling World Bicycle Relief bicycles and caregiver kits; delivering World Bicycle Relief bicycles to recipients; touring a micro enterprise orientation program in Harmos, which helps local people build their own small businesses; and visiting Bimbe Basic School to interact with students and teachers.
Before the trip, KBS sprinter Alex Candelario said in a press release, “I’m really looking forward to this trip and to being able to see how a bicycle makes a real difference to people in developing nations.”
"We are deeply thankful to John Kelly and the entire Kelly Benefit Strategies Pro Cycling Team for their season-long fundraising efforts," said F.K. Day, president of World Bicycle Relief. "The impact of simple, sustainable mobility on the poor cannot be overstated, and I am certain that this trip will leave a deep and lasting impression on them of the true power that bicycles have in the hands of those who need them most."
Kona AfricaBikes head to Vietnam
Not to be confused with the utility bikes that World Bicycle Relief sources for use in Africa using donated funds, Kona’s AfricaBikes initiative is fueled by sales of actual Kona bicycles. The Kona AfricaBike is a sturdy, urban (or dirt path) utility bike, which in 2010 will be called “AfricaBike Three” and will retail for $450.
For every two AfricaBikes sold to cyclists, one AfricaBike is donated to the Kona AfricaBike program. Like WBR’s mission, the objective of Kona’s AfricaBikes program is similarly humanitarian in nature, designed to leverage the efficient, inexpensive transportation enabled by bicycles to expand the reach of home healthcare workers caring for HIV/AIDS patients in sub-Saharan countries in Africa.
Now, Kona Bicycles is partnering with Roadmonkey Adventure Philanthropy to provide Kona’s AfricaBikes to ethnic minority students in Vietnam’s central highlands. In Vietnam, Roadmonkey identified the need — the Kon Ray boarding school for gifted ethnic minority students in an impoverished region near the city of Kon Tum — and Kona filled it, with 16 of its workhorse AfricaBikes that will provide transportation to the neediest students.
Roadmonkey Adventure Philanthropy is organized and led by Paul von Zielbauer, an award-winning reporter and Iraq war correspondent for The New York Times from 1999 to September 2009. Roadmonkey trips are designed to incorporate both adventure travel and volunteer projects for the particpants. Rather than traveling as tourists, participants genuinely explore a new region of the world, and along the route, complete a meaningful volunteer project that directly benefits people and communities in need.
The Kona bikes will be delivered next month, when Roadmonkey will lead a two-week "adventure philanthropy" expedition through the Central Highlands, cycling 300 miles from Danang into the Central Highlands, and then spending four days building an organic farm at the Kon Ray school. The farm will help create a sustainable revenue stream for the school.
"There's a tremendous need for basic supplies and reliable transportation in this region of Vietnam, particularly in the aftermath of Typhoon Ketsana last month," said Paul von Zielbauer in a press release. "The ethnic minority students at the Kon Ray school come from a variety of indiginous tribes, and Kona's AfricaBikes will help these kids get to school safely and reliably."
Team Roadmonkey, working with the East Meets West Foundation and the Kon Ray teachers, government officials and community residents, will assemble the Kona AfricaBikes, build the organic farm and plant 250 trees that will help the school underwrite further scholarships to children in need of basic education.
In a press release, Jacob Heilbron, Kona’s CEO said, "Roadmonkey's philanthropic approach to adventure travel is a perfect fit for Kona's AfricaBike program." He added, "The AfricaBike was designed specifically to be used to improve fundamental quality of life conditions in impoverished areas of the world. Roadmonkey's trips are designed to do the same. It's a great way for us to expand the reach of the AfricaBike program."
