It takes a mighty low-life pack of thieves to steal bicycles from a charitable, non-profit organization that cleans donated bikes up, fixes them up, and puts them back into the community free of charge to those who want or need them in order to get around. Nevertheless that's exactly what Oliver Bjorn Kavanaugh and his colleages at CycleReCycle in downtown Benton Harbor are dealing with.
Kavanaugh tells me that somebody broke into the organization's club house and repair shop behind The Bait Shed Service Station on Main Street across from Kinexus and stole 16 new summer program bikes. Those are bikes that CycleReCycle used to do community outreach bicycle programs with the Benton Harbor-St. Joseph YMCA, the Niles YMCA and Lighthouse Ministries among others. Plans were well underway to use those same bicycles in the future to partner and collaborate with other youth-oriented organizations until somebody decided that those bikes were better in their possession, perhaps to be sold in the streets to unsuspecting buyers or converted for their own illicit pleasures.
CycleReCycle organizers, technicians, mechanics, students, and eventual riders spent hours working on donated bikes to get them road ready and in top notch condition to be share free of charge throughout the community, only…now they are gone. Vanished in the middle of the night to a thief or pack of thieves who elected to make them their own.
CycleReCycle is a unique program that for more than six years now has quietly labored behind the scenes to provide education on the care and repair of bicycles for those who want and need them, programming and community activation for those who want and need it…and a solid measure of camaraderie and goodwill among avid bicyclists who wanted to help others enjoy the fruits of their labors.
For half a dozen years now they have helped communities across Berrien County, and now they are asking for a little help in return from the citizens of Berrien County and beyond to help recover the sixteen stolen bikes and get them back into the shipping container they were stolen from so that they can be used by those who love and need them once again.
Benton Harbor Police and others are helping to investigate the crime and Kavanaugh says that each of the bikes had been registered with their serial numbers with authorities to help identify them in efforts to recover the stolen property.
The one thing that CycleReCycle organizers refuse to become is victims however. Instead, they are heroes who have worked diligently on behalf of the cycling community. Pastor Lisa Gorman from Lighthouse Ministries issued a $100 reward for the successful return of the stolen bikes and Mr. Kavanaugh immediately matched it, so there is currently a $200 reward in place in a bid to recover the bikes in good condition.
Kavanaugh says his colleagues at CycleReCycle "refuse to lose spirit, ambition or vigor" in their efforts. Take a good look at the photos depicting the bikes and share this message so that others will know of this crime and can work collectively to solve it and get the bikes back where they belong.
