Pedaling Relief Project

When the pandemic hit and many families lost their source of income, the Pedaling Relief Project responded to deliver pedal-powered food and goods to our neighbors in need.

Our mission is to engage in crisis response on a neighborhood level and to establish long-term community resiliency by creating or expanding Mutual Aid networks, all from the seat of a cargo-carrying bicycle. Plus it’s just dang fun to ride your bike with a purpose!

How it works:

• We develop opportunities that allow our volunteers to get out on their bikes and become involved with the organizations and groups that are providing support to members of their communities that are most in need. 

• These volunteer opportunities currently include delivering groceries for four local food banks to families and individuals all over Seattle, rescuing food from local grocery stores for food banks, and also riding out to restock Little Free Pantries that provide neighborhood level emergency food support. 

• We also bike fresh produce that is donated by local community gardens to food banks, and deliver school supplies to elementary students in underserved communities. 

Get involved and pedal with us!

Our impact (updated July 2022):

• Since May 2020 we rode out into our communities

  5,070 times and collectively we carried valuable food and school supplies more than

  15,752 miles all on our bike. Our average miles traveled when making our deliveries or pickups was 2.5 miles.

• We biked more than 169 tons of food and personal care items out to more than

  14,973 of our neighbors who are experiencing food insecurity from the White Center Food Bank, the Byrd Barr Place Food Bank, University District Food Bank, El Centro De La Raza Food Bank, Rainier Valley Food Bank, Mary's Place, P-Patch Community Gardens, and Alleycat Acres.

• We rescued more than

  113,122 pounds of food from local grocery stores for the Byrd Barr Place Food Bank and the University District Food Bank, all by bike. Much of that rescued food (especially the bread) was immediately used to make no-cook meals for people without a kitchen and our neighbors who are experiencing homelessness.

• We made these difficult times just a little easier for 356 elementary school students by delivering school supplies and books to their homes for their students from Graham Hill Elementary and Beacon Hill International Elementary. For the majority of the school families it would have been prohibitively difficult to pick the books and supplies up from the schools themselves due to work schedules and transportation barriers.

• Through our 3 weekly Little Free Pantry restocking rides in Central, and North Seattle we are able to fully restock more than 40 neighborhood free pantries and community fridges. These Little Free Pantries and Community Fridges offer a zero-barrier emergency access point to food and help fill the gaps in the community support system.

• By doing this all by bike rather than by car or truck we kept more than 8.6 tons of CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere.

Get involved and pedal with us!

Support us with your donation