Donating to Back Alley Bikes
I. What do I get out of donating?
Back Alley Bikes is a non-profit organization so your donations to us are eligible as tax write offs. If you desire a receipt for your donation for this purpose, please inform us before you come to better assist you. This is not required but if we don’t know you are coming you may be required to wait a short time for us to fill out the receipt.
By donating you also get the satisfaction of knowing your donation is assisting our effort to get youth on bikes and moving around the “motor” city under their own power!
II. Where does the stuff go?
If you haven’t already, we would encourage you to go through the “Programs” section of our site to find out the services we provide free of charge to participants because of generous donations made by people like you! But if you don’t have the time, here is a quick summary:
We get kids on bikes. Older youth learn how to build the bikes up and then keep the bike they build after they are done. Younger youth that are too small to pick up a wrench are given bikes during our Bike Give-A-Ways in partnership with other organizations. Some bikes do get built up and are sold at The Hub of Detroit. This money then returns to fund the staffing for our youth programming.
Broken or rusted bikes sometimes get scrapped for money or they get moved along to one of our community partners who then take the metal and turn it into art or something completely new (bike rack, sculpture, windmill…)
III. What stuff are you looking for?
We are looking for mostly bikes and bike parts, but being that we have offices, educational material and materials to build upon our existing space we came up with this wish list:
- Bike books/coloring books/magazines/periodicals for our bike library!
- Pens, pencils, markers and crayons
- Old (relatively clean) rags/clothing/linen for shop towels
- Steel wool, sponges, degreaser and other cleaning products
- Duct, packaging, electrical and masking tape
- 2 by 4s and other useable building supplies
- Spray and bucket paint/enamel
- Metric wrenches, screwdrivers and bike specific tools
- Extension Cords
- Money (cash/check)
- Your time as a volunteer
IV. Where do I bring stuff?
For monetary and other material donations besides bikes please contact us. To donate bikes, you can drop them off at the following locations:
Dropping bicycles off at our partner shop, The Hub of Detroit, is the most convenient, but if another participating shop is closer to you, feel free to contact them to drop off a bike there. If none of those options work, please contact our Development Coordinator Heather who can best assist with incoming donations. Heather can be reached at Heather (at) thehubofdetroit.org or through the Back Alley Bikes phone number listed on this site.
V. Wish List
Sometimes there are things we wish for that are larger than donations of bike parts that require a really generous person with a specific skill. And since you never get what you don’t ask for…- New windows in our warehouse
- Major electrical work in our warehouse space (rewiring, installation of outlets and switches)
- File Cabinets
- Drop ceiling panels Thanks Boy Scouts!
- Mini-Fridge Thanks!
- Land-line phones Thanks!
VI. More Questions
You have more questions? Email Heather (at) thehubofdetroit.org or give Back Alley Bikes a call about donating.
I have 4 bikes I would like to donate. I am wondering if you have someone around Oxford MI that would pick them up instead of me bringing them downtown.
I know this is a huge request, but thought it was worth a try…
2 bikes are more for a 10-11 year old boy and the other 2 are adult bikes. All of them are classified as mountain bikes, but they were inexpensive bikes, so they really don’t ride that well on mountain trails–they have many gears, but they don’t necessarily function that well. They have not been used much at all–my sons quickly became good mountain bikers and have since purchased better quality bikes. And, they were purchased as extra bikes to keep at a cabin, but then we had to sell the cabin, so we no longer needed all the bikes. My son took one of them apart for parts and put parts back on, so I am not sure about that one…anyway, please contact me if this is worth it for The Hub, or if someone happens to live out this way and wants to pick them up.
MY SCOUTING FAMILIES TRULY ENJOYED TODAY’S EXPERIENCE BUILDING THEIR OWN BIKES. THIS PROGRAM IS A REQUIREMENT FOR SCOUTS TO FAMILIARIZE THEMSELVES WITH A BIKE AND SAFETY RULES AND YOUR PROGRAM REALLY FITS THE BILL, THEIR SIBLINGS HAD A BALL AS WELL. PACK 314 WILL BE DONATING FROM YOUR WISH LIST VERY SHORTLY. AND MORE SCOUTS FROM PACK 314 WILL JOIN THE BUILD-A-BIKE PROGRAM SHORTLY. THIS FREE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM FOR OUR YOUNG PEOPLE IS ONE OF THE BEST KEPT SECRETS IN THE CITY. THANKS AGAIN AND GOD BLESS YOU FOR YOUR EFFORTS,
BRENDA BURTON, CUBMASTER, PACK 314, RENAISSANCE DISRICT