Students and teachers from Errigal College with some of the donated bicycles.
BACK in May, Letterkenny’s Errigal College in association with the Donegal News, launched their ‘Get Involved’ campaign by inviting the public at large to donate their old unwanted bicycles.
The national ‘Get Involved’ initiative is an opportunity for local communities to support sustainable projects by assisting small/medium scale, not for profit environmental projects at local level that contribute to a more sustainable Ireland.
The response was that good, Errigal College ‘Get Involved’ co-ordinator, Janet McGeever, was ‘bowled over’.
“Since the campaign launched in the Donegal News we have received 50 bicycles from the public. This is an amazing response and means we can get started straight away on recycling the bikes. Even though students are now finished up for the summer we can still accept old bikes so please drop them off at any time.”
The Challenge
After completing a Sky Sports challenge, staff at Errigal College realised that a lot of children don’t own a bike and in some cases have never owned a bike.
The project, which is aimed towards ecotourism and resource efficiency, ties in with the School’s green ethos and pushes a healthy agenda as children are encouraged to cycle to school or become more active.
Plans
The school is making a public request for any old/new unused bikes. These bikes may not necessarily be working but maybe stored away in sheds etc. The plan is to collect as many as possible for September, and then, as a module, have the School’s transition year class build and repair the bikes from what is available.
The aim then is to have a ‘rent a bike’ scheme in the school, allowing the kids to have the use of a bike for a deposit of 10 Euro for one month and if the bike comes back the way they got it, they get the 10 Euro back. Any bicycle, which is not suitable for repair, will be recycled and the money earned will help buy some essentials like repair kits etc.
This project will run for the school year but the intention is it will become an ongoing project continuing as a module in transition year.
Your help
In order to help all you need to do is drop off your unwanted bicycles to Errigal College or telephone 074 9121047.
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