A Basic School Supply Goes Far with “Pencils for Pedals”

Inwood Academy students visit WBR at the 2012 Bike Expo in the midst of their "Pencils for Pedals" fundraising campaign.

Last December, the Principal of Inwood Academy for Leadership Charter School in New York, NY encouraged students to come up with a project for their December Giving Tree. Most classes collected toys or books for children during the month of December, but the students of the 6th grade Resource Room decided to change things up--they wanted to raise money for two WBR bikes and to take as much time as needed to do so. Inspired by a visit to their school by F.K. and Leah Day the previous year, the students proposed to sell pencils to their classmates to raise money for a WBR bike, titling their project “Pencils for Pedals”. Based on recent math curriculum, they decided to sell two pencils for $.25, resulting in a profit of 3 cents per pencil. Each morning before school, students would sell the pencils. They made posters to advertise and even wrote a little rap to sing to their classmates about WBR! Two students in particular, Emely Ortiz and Krystal Vargas, were faithful through the long winter months. Just a few short months later, the students are closing in on their goal, having raised $175!

Emely described WBR’s work by comparing it to the Industrial Revolution, a topic recently covered in her social studies course, “Changes because of the WBR bicycle are similar to the Industrial Revolution because in the Industrial Revolution it took days to finish clothing and get food from one place to the other, and this was the same problem in Zambia. The bicycle changed lives like machines did in the Industrial Revolution, making things easier and faster.”

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