Early in the Covid pandemic lockdown, Lonnell Wells launched the Cambridge Bike Give Back program to confront his anger over the police killing of George Floyd. It was his and his friends’ way of transforming rage into a community good. The program takes used or broken bikes and restores them to be gifted to those in need in the community.
During the inaugural year of 2020, Give Back handed out just under 50 bikes, operating mostly out of Wells’ home in Chelsea. Now, as a bike repair shop and distribution center in the CambridgeSide mall parking garage, the Give Back program has notched more than 5,000 giveaways and is expanding to serve the community even more. Last month, Give Back launched its monthly bike rodeo program in a large indoor annex on the second floor of the mall, where children accompanied by parents can test ride bikes and get riding lessons. The spacious velodrome is impressive in size and layout, with roped-off lanes, a few test ride obstacles and rows of refurbished bikes around the perimeter to choose from.
The use of the mall space was brokered in 2021 by then vice mayor Alanna Mallon and former mayor Anthony Galluccio, who appealed to the management at New England Development, CambridgeSide’s operator. Wells called mall management amazing. “They take really good care of us,” he said. “I just ask and things happen.”
Galluccio reflected via email: “I was happy to help. I have worked with CBGB to get bikes to needy kids and love what they do. Getting space is very hard, and I am happy it worked out.”
The Give Back program is not limited to Cambridge. “I’ll give a bike to anyone if they need it,” Wells said, though “there is a difference between ‘needing a bike’ and ‘wanting a bike.’” The grassroots foundation of the Give Back program is community and equity, as well as health and environmental wellness. A priority is getting bikes to the children of single parents who might not be able to afford a bike, and people just out of incarceration and in need an affordable way to get to work. The program is steeped in community and designed for social impact.
The Give Back program partners with Bikes not Bombs in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood in Boston to bolster inventory. Bikes not Bombs, which was founded in 1984, ships bikes to communities in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. The Give Back also recently entered into a partnership with the Cambridge’s Bike Accessibility Program (part of the Community Development Department), which launched a bike lottery program. It’s through that program that qualifying residents are picked to get a voucher for a bike from Give Back, with the program aiming to hand out 800 bikes.
Wells, the father of an Arlington High sophomore, worked as a chef at Boston University when he launched the program, but now does Give Back full time. His sense of fulfillment is clear when he talks about the program’s humble origins and impressive growth. Its future will continue to focus on community engagement, such as hosting a booth at Cambridge’s River Festival or holding a family barbecue and bike giveaway, as Wells has done in the past.
The current White House administration and so-called Department of Governmental Efficiency, with its aggressively anti-social justice aims, could threaten the program. “We know something big can happen,” Wells said. “There’s going to be a lot of bumps down the lane we’re going, but we’ve yet to hit one of those bumps.”
If you have an old or unused bike and want to get it to the Give Back program, you can drop it off at at any time at the mall; there are cable locks at the program’s offices to lock the bike up outside if you drop off outside shop hours. The rodeo program will typically be hosted the first or second Saturday each month, but check the Give Back website or Facebook page. The next one is Saturday. Details on qualification for the Bike Accessibility Program lottery are listed on the Bike Accessibility Program’s webpage.
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