December 2025

In this newsletter...

1. Get together 12/23 - chili, last minute gift screen-printing, cheer
2. Container loading 12/16-18 & 12/19-20
3. Inventory! Volunteers needed!
4. Year-end Recap
5. Ramp Project Update
6. Upcoming annual meeting and December meeting recap
7. Give us some feedback on this newsletter platform!

Happy December (and happy holidays!), volunteers! Despite the cold and snowy weather, there have been so many wonderful volunteers in the shop wrenching on kiddie bikes and adult cruisers for holiday donations. In addition to volunteers wrenching in the shop, so many volunteer drivers have stepped up to help in our newly-formed cohort of drivers called the Collection Crew. We want to send an extra special thanks to volunteers Mike S. and Tony O. for all their help picking up hundreds of bikes while Charlie has been out on medical leave! All volunteers can join us for a December appreciation event on Tuesday, December 23rd from 3pm-6pm to screen print some last-minute gifts and enjoy some vegetarian chili, cookies, and hot chocolate. Working Bikes will be closed to customers and volunteers from December 24th - January 1st and will open back up to volunteers on Friday, January 2nd for our annual inventory day! Join us from 11am-5pm on January 2nd to count all the bikes and purchased inventory in the building! We hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday season and if we don’t see you before, have a happy new year!

We will also be loading TWO containers next week: one for Africycle in Malawi (regular sized container) and one for CIDDH in Durango, Mexico (smaller container). Join us Tuesday, December 16th through Thursday, December 18th to load bikes for Malawi and on Saturday, December 20th to load bikes for Durango! And we'll need help prepping for the Saturday, the 20th, load with an extra volunteer shift on Friday the 19th to stage donations for our friends in Durango.

Inventory Day!

Year-end Recap

It’s hard to believe it’s already December! We have had such a fulfilling year at Working Bikes, with thousands of bikes collected from around Chicago and distributed locally and abroad. Without the help of volunteers, we would not be able to pick up as many bikes, fix and donate bikes locally, or load containers for international partners. As of early December, 1,743 volunteers have logged over 7,500 hours in the system! While we try to encourage all volunteers to log hours, not everyone remembers, so there are likely much more hours unaccounted for. We are so grateful to all of our volunteers, and especially to our team of volunteers who come in to wrench on bikes for local donation. By the end of the year, Working Bikes will have donated about 1,800 bikes in Chicago, including 1,000 refurbished by volunteers and about 800 donated “as-is” to partners! While we greatly appreciate the help in Brandon’s Bike Shop, we also have a dedicated group of volunteers who drive trucks and pick up bikes all over the city and surrounding areas, now known as the Collection Crew! The Collection Crew can expand WB’s collection capacity and improve efficiency, which will allow Charlie, our Bicycle Acquisition Specialist, to focus on bigger collections and developing relationships with more collection and donation partners. If you have access to a vehicle or truck (we have car racks!) and would like to help us collect bikes in the city and across the suburbs, send an email to charles@workingbikes.org to get in touch with Charlie and the team.

We truly appreciate each and every volunteer who has helped out the organization this year or for any of the last 26 years. Please join us for our last volunteer appreciation night of the year on December 23rd from 3pm-6pm, where we’ll have screen printing, chili, snacks, cookies, hot cocoa, and more! We encourage you to bring an item or two you’d like to print for yourself, or print something for a family member or friend as a last-minute gift idea! Feel free to bring snacks or drinks to share with the crew. We hope to see lots of folks there!

Ramp Project Update

Several years ago, Working Bikes members put together a strategic plan, which included making improvements to our building! Our 100+ year old building has great bones, but we want to make it more accessible by building a ramp and new entrance on the north side of the building. After a lengthy process of getting the right permits, first floor re-design charrettes, and receiving bids from contractors, we are plotting our next steps. All the bids we’ve received are a bit higher than we'd hoped, so the committee is exploring other options/modifications to fit our price range, take advantage of the permits, and improve our space. Despite the high initial bids, we still want to move forward with rearranging the first floor to accommodate the new north-facing entrance. Winter months are slower at the shop with fewer customers shopping for bikes or in need of repairs, which will make it much easier to overhaul the space! Our current plan is to move the volunteer shop to the South East wall, closer to the service department for easier consultation between volunteer mechanics and our staff community bike repair mechanics. The sales floor will then be shifted towards the middle of the shop, where Brandon’s Bike Shop is currently located. Shifting everything prior to the ramp and entrance build will require some temporary walkways, but will ultimately make things easier come springtime for actual construction. That means we will need extra help moving, shifting, and shuffling the first floor! The tentative plan is to start this project in February, so stay tuned for more definitive plans.

Upcoming Annual Meeting & December Meeting recap

On the first Wednesday of every even-numbered month, we meet as an organization to discuss operations, approve meeting minutes, and hear from a local and/or international partner about their organization and partnership with Working Bikes. All are welcome to attend General Meetings, and there is usually a potluck before each meeting where folks can mingle and get to know each other. At our December meeting last week, we had the wonderful opportunity to hear from local Cycle of Power partners, Andrea and Aaron from Revive Center for Housing and Healing. Andrea, Director of Programs and an occupational therapist at Revive, shared how bikes have been tools for both transportation and physical/mental therapy for their patients. Andrea also shared that Revive is building a brand new center, which will be equipped with a bike and exercise room! They currently have the funding and permit for the actual construction, but not the furniture and items to stock the rooms. Working Bikes will be able to provide stationary bikes and trainers for the exercise room, plus racks and other repair and maintenance items for the bike room! It was so great to hear from Andrea and Aaron that bikes have made such an impact on their members that they needed to include a bike room in their new construction!

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, February 4th from 6pm-8pm in Brandon’s Bike Shop. This will be the first General Meeting of the year, also known as the Annual Meeting, where members will be able to vote on a slate of candidates for the board and a slate of officers. The nominating committee has been collecting statements of interest from current board members and prospective board members and will present a proposed slate to the board for approval at their January meeting. Upon approval by the board, it will be presented to general membership for a vote at the annual meeting. While all are welcome to the meeting, only Working Bikes members are allowed to participate in the voting process. Members are considered staff, board, donation drop-off partners, and volunteers who have reached a certain threshold of hours (see bylaws). We will share a list of all volunteer members prior to the meeting. We hope to see lots of volunteers and community members at the annual meeting!

Check out the December meeting minutes here!​