From Villa Park to Africa: How former Peace Corps volunteer founded Bikes for Lesotho

“Kea leboha Working Bikes bakeng sa libaesekele ho ntlafatsa maphelo a bana ba rona.”

Nope, not a typo. This Sesotho expression of gratitude acknowledges Chicagoland bicycle donors for their generosity to the Kingdom of Lesotho: “Thank you Working Bikes for your bikes to improve the lives of our children.”

Since 2013, Bikes For Lesotho, an organization launched by Villa Park resident Dave Gorman, has shipped 7,000 used bikes to this landlocked African country, collaborating with Chicago’s nonprofit Working Bikes. Suburban Chicago residents have donated two-thirds of them.

Shipping container No. 14 reached Lesotho in January with nearly 600 bikes for Gorman’s partners. They include Lesotho’s National Olympic committee and the Lesotho Cycling Federation, plus individual shop owners Seabata, Mmeke and Tumi, each located just outside Maseru, the country’s capital.

‘Wheels of Joy’

In June 2013, Tumi’s Bicycle Shop received the first 400-bike shipment. But the story really starts 24 years earlier with “The Man Who Gave Lesotho Wheels of Joy,” a title bestowed on Gorman by Lesotho’s National Olympic committee.

A Marquette University-trained civil engineer, Gorman volunteered in the Peace Corps from 1989-92. His motivation: “Partly wanting to help others and partly wanting to see the world, throw myself out of my comfort zone,” he said.

Gorman worked alongside a counterpart from Lesotho to learn the culture and the Sesotho language. The two directed 100 villagers to build a roadway, and four masons to construct water systems for drinking and irrigation, as well as school buildings.

While a normal Peace Corps assignment was two years, Gorman extended his for a third. He wanted to complete a water system project piping spring water from surrounding mountains to residents of Seforong, his southeastern Lesotho village.

Gorman has visited the country multiple times since that experience, most recently in March after retiring from Lombard’s Public Works Department. Early on in his visits, he had observed the absence of bicycles. As a seasoned cyclist, he knew the joy and freedom that biking brings.

Upon learning in 2012 that HIV/AIDS had orphaned 100,000 Lesotho children, Gorman experienced an epiphany one night. “Bikes! I wanted to send bikes to these orphans to provide them with the joy of riding.”

Searching “bikes” and “Lesotho” online, he discovered Mike’s Bikes Africa Foundation, associated with a California bike shop chain that had already shipped a few dozen secondhand bikes to Lesotho’s first bike shop. It was willing to ship 400 more if Gorman could raise $20,000 for transit.

Per Gorman, he and friend Jeff Teppema “wrote pamphlets, created a Facebook page, made presentations, and spoke with reporters. To inspire contributions, Jeff and I announced that we would ride our bikes 350 miles in high altitude around the southern half of the kingdom.”

‘Bring us bikes’

Their circular journey through the mountainous kingdom began in Maseru and ended there a week later. “Over that week, we saw only two other bicycles,” Gorman wrote in a March 2018 Peace Corps article about his initiative.

“Everywhere, people wanted to see our bikes and they asked for us to help bring bikes to their area,” Gorman said. Within three months they raised the funds for that first shipment. Bikes for Lesotho was launched.

Gorman joined Chicago’s Working Bikes in 2015 as a board member-at-large, became board secretary in 2019 and board president in 2024.

In March, Gorman was welcomed by Lesotho’s National Olympic committee president, Letsatsi Ntsibolane, and was a guest of the Federation of Cycling Lesotho. The groups expressed appreciation for the 7,000 bikes delivered to partners in the country, who reassembled and refurbished them, most for donation but some for sale in support of bike shops.

The Lesotho shipment was one of 15 containers packed in 2025 by Working Bikes staff and volunteers at its Chicago location. Over 9,500 preloved bikes were packed and shipped internationally, according to Working Bikes’ 2025 Annual Report. It also assisted other bicycle nonprofits in Madison, Wisconsin; St. Louis; and Portland, Oregon, to ship another 1,500-plus bikes last year.

200,000-plus bikes

Celebrating its 26th anniversary last October, Working Bikes is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that breathes new life into used bikes by redistributing them to local and global communities. Donated from throughout Chicagoland, bikes are either refurbished for resale/giveaway in Chicago and the suburbs or shipped to developing countries. Since 1999, Working Bikes has supplied over 200,000 bikes, per Gorman.

Working Bikes collects used bikes at most community recycling events. A majority of its more than 50 collection partners are suburban, including Main Street Outfitter in Wauconda, Trek Bicycle in Villa Park, Wheel Werks Bikes in Crystal Lake, and Warrenville’s Recycled Cycling Bike Shop. The Working Bikes Drop-Off Locations webpage also lists 15 individual homes accepting donations.

In a 2024 interview, Working Bikes co-founder Lee Ravenscroft stressed how bikes are transportation workhorses in developing countries, hence “working” bikes. “Bikes can carry 10 times their weight, are five times faster and more efficient than walking. One can overload a bike with product for market, then throw it atop a bus to return home.”

He and his wife, co-founder Amy Little, experienced firsthand bikes’ life-changing value during her Peace Corps years in Guatemala (1981-83) and his mid-1980s volunteer work in Nicaragua.

So think twice before trashing used bikes at the curb. We may view them as recreation/fitness items, but underserved populations see self-determination tools, allowing access to employment, education, medical facilities, and other life functions.

• Join the ride. Contact Ralph Banasiak at alongfortheridemail@gmail.com.