Global Greenie

I have an interesting new group of friends here in Portland.  We share a desire to do some good in the world, or — at least — in our city.  We have some fun social outings, like bowling (which I’d done maybe twice in my life), and we’re going to volunteer to do something together once a month.  On Saturday, we all became temporary bike wrench monkeys at the Community Cycling Center.

That’s me with one of the bikes we cleaned, greased, de-rusted, and prepped for one of the CCC’s main missions: to give bikes to needy kids.  Looks brand new, doesn’t it?

And while cleaning was somewhat satisfying, I got a bigger thrill out of destroying kiddie bikes.  Some of the donations are too beat out to clean up, so we learned to deconstruct them, saving parts like tires, rims, and inner tubes.  We also spared a few chains, seats, horns, etc. from the landfills.

If you’re in the Portland area, and would like to volunteer, check out the opportunities.  And there are plenty of other ways to support if you don’t like to get dirty.