Featured Volunteer: Remembering Ric Jackson

Ric Jackson was a dear friend to Bikes for the World going back ten years. At the time he was taking donated bikes from the community, fixing them up, and using them as loaners so people could enjoy the towpath along the C&O Canal from Great Falls. Whether it was your first time ever riding on an 'off road' surface or maybe you didn't have a way of transporting your bike to a park like Great Falls...Ric was there to help.

Ric transformed an area by the visitors center into a bike hub. He had a small workshop and utilized volunteers who helped repair and maintain the donated bike fleet for use along the canal. Visitors could borrow a bike for a couple hours and go miles further to explore the sights along the towpath which stretches all the way from Georgetown to Cumberland (and now with the GAP Trail- beyond!)

Ric was a volunteer with the C & O Canal, riding it daily to ensure its safety for visitors. He was friends with another guy doing similar work named Phil Ruth. If you've been a friend of BfW for a long time, you know Phil! Well, Phil would run out to Ric's workshop and grab any donated bikes that weren't really suitable as loaners on the canal and bring them back to Bikes for the World. We would then find suitable homes for them. It was never many, because Ric could make most bikes work.

After about five years Ric left the program and began just fixing bikes up for the neighborhood. This was incredibly helpful during the pandemic, when it was hard to find a new bike and even harder to get an old bike in a shop for repairs. Ric was featured in 2021 on CBS News as the neighborhood bike guy. 

Quite often someone would bring Ric a bike and it really only needed minor repairs. Maybe some air in the tires, grease on the chain, and a new set of hand grips. And he never charged a dime. It was reward enough to see the smile on a kid's face. 

Ric also worked with Furnish Hope in DC to help get bikes to kids in Ward 8. He was just their goto volunteer bike guy. If they had bikes donated to the organization they would run them by Ric and he would make sure they were working and safe to ride. If they weren't he fixed them, free of charge. Together Ric and Furnish Hope delivered over 500 bikes to the kids in the city. 

Ric continued to send folks to Bikes for the World when they had a bike they no longer needed. And every time they came in they always said, Ric sent me, I didn't even know you existed! We were saddened to learn at the end of the year Ric died last fall while riding his bike.