Featured Volunteer: Dennis Kiernan

Dennis Kiernan is the owner and manager of Preferred Business in Elmsford New York. He is also operating the official/unofficial NY arm of Bikes for the World. There's really no other way to describe it. We can, however, also give due credit to his entire team working at Preferred Business for lending a hand in the effort. 

Dennis approached BfW back in 2015 to see if he could serve as a drop off location in Elmsford. At the time we did have several locations collecting and storing bikes along the east coast, but it was a bit of a challenge. These locations were not moving the volume of bikes we do at our DC HQs and so having the right style bike on hand for a container loading BEFORE running out of warehouse space was a concern for many of them. We set Dennis up to supplement our warehouse in Long Island.

Before long Dennis was taking more than individual bike donations. His warehouse was big enough, and his commitment to service strong enough, that he started answering calls from folks who had stockpiles of bikes to donate. This involved time, space, trucks and traffic! They stretched from NYC to towns in NJ; bike organizations, condos, churches, schools etc. Dennis and his team would rent trucks, pick up bikes, deliver them back to the warehouse and hold them until we could pick them up.

Just a couple weeks ago he was back in New Jersey to pick up a few bikes to add to his supply. Because we rolled his bikes into other efforts initially, it's hard to determine with a great deal of accuracy how many bikes he's contributed to our program over the years, but we can assure you it's greater than 500. Just this year, Preferred Business topped our corporate partner list with 350 bikes.

Dennis also facilitated a donation of bikes that went through New York in 2016. We were approached by a group with Tour de Quisqueya attempting to bring bikes to Haiti and given their location and ours, Dennis agreed to meet with the organizer and released a couple dozen bikes to the effort. 

Throughout the year we see photos of what Dennis is up to, or rather his team...it's not always him out and about loading up bikes into the truck and bringing them back to the warehouse. And this is no easy job. His entire team deserves credit for making this happen. And we have come to rely on Preferred Business especially in our leaner months when our bike supply dwindles. We sometimes find ourselves not having the right mix of bikes our partners need; then a truck arrives from Elmsford with bikes prepped and ready to go!

It is our pleasure to be part of the bike salvage team and it's a labor of love. I have a fabulous team that's on board in giving back to our community and to our world. I couldn't do it without them and they manage to assist while still performing their role in the company.

Dennis Kiernan, Owner and Manager Preferred Business