LaSone Barber has been haunting the aisles at Bikes for the World for thirteen years now! She started with us when we were down on Eads in Pentagon City...and there truly were aisles (and aisles and aisles) of bikes in the warehouse. That's the warehouse that could hold 7,000 bikes at a time (now we can handle about 1,000). So having LaSone organize a team from Microsoft to help with bikes...well let's just say we kept them busy.
She took a few years off, but when she was back organizing corporate volunteer sessions she came right back to Bikes for the World and we were more than happy to accommodate. Now with limited space, having the Microsoft team visit every other month or so has been critical. They almost always have plenty of volunteers to help with a loading AND compact bikes simultaneously.
LaSone first came to us during our 100k celebration event and we brainstormed to take advantage of that Microsoft technology. The day before our big event loading our 100,000th donated bike, we had a small gathering across the street at the Pentagon City Mall where Microsoft had a store. LaSone set us up to give a multi-media presentation, something that would not have been as seamless in our big, cavernous warehouse. We brought in Luis Jimenez all the way from Costa Rica to talk about MiBici and FINCA Costa Rica, the partner receiving the most annual shipments from BfW and more importantly in 2014, our 100,000th donated bike.
And LaSone and her team also rolled up their sleeves, walked across the street, and got their hands greasy in the warehouse. They helped us compact more bikes for the shipment and rolled some bikes onto the container. And they were hooked, or at least LaSone was. She scheduled many more events over the years. And the bonus for us, the employees of Microsoft can apply to have their hours matched, in dollars. So for every hour worked by one of their employees at Bikes for the World, Microsoft then pays us!
October is Microsoft's big GIVE event where they focus on volunteerism during the month. This year they organized a team building bike build where they bought, built, and donated 10 brand new bikes. Dozens of employees took part in the event and LaSone jumped in to represent us. When we couldn't spare anyone to send to the event to speak about what we do, LaSone said, I can totally do that. So while we worked that Thursday afternoon at the warehouse with our volunteers, one of our longest serving volunteers stepped in and stepped up to energize more folks and share how they were helping our partners around the world. Hopefully we'll see a few of them again the next time LaSone comes to visit.