City police team up with Rotary Club of Medicine Hat on bike donation program

By Medicine Hat News on December 23, 2020.

Medicine Hat Police Service and the City of Medicine Hat have teamed up with the Rotary Club of Medicine Hat to make the most of an unfortunate situation through a new bicycle donation program.

MHPS typically receives around 150 reports of stolen bicycles each year, but a Tuesday release says information from the community suggests there are additional bicycle thefts that go unreported. Many of those bicycles are later recovered and go unclaimed. While those bikes usually go to public auction, with proceeds directed to the city, they’ll now be donated to help those in need.

“The patterns of theft and recovery indicates that many times the stolen bicycles are simply used as a quick means of transportation,” MHPS inspector Brent Secondiak says in the release.

Secondiak suggests the joint initiative – which will be a pilot project for one year before reassessment – is an effort to address the concern of bicycle theft and reduce its frequency.

The city will provide 25 bikes to the Rotary Club “for a nominal fee,” which will then be repaired and donated to members of the community who “require transportation as identified by local support agencies.”

A number of Rotary Club members also stepped forward to donate their own used bikes to the program, the release adds.

“This was a natural fit, a natural way for the Club to help members of the community who may be in need of transportation,” Rotary Club member Peter Mueller says in the release.

Each repaired bicycle will be supplied with a Rotary Club decal, as well as registration in the MHPS Bike Index program – a non-profit online registry that helps prove ownership and locate missing bicycles. For more information on the Bike Index program, visit bikeindex.org.

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