By: The Journal
MARTINSBURG — A Spring Mills High School senior’s Eagle Scout project is bringing hope and a brighter future to families in distant lands — two wheels at a time.
Olivia Morrison, 17, organized a collection on Nov. 23 to benefit Bikes for the World, so people in locales such as Costa Rica, Ghana, Madagascar, and the Philippines can pedal to work, school, and social service agencies. That day, people came from as far away as Berkeley Springs and Sharpsburg, Maryland, to bring a total of 107 bikes and $640 in donations to Spring Mills High. Also contributed were helmets and a bike rack for transporting two-wheelers on the back of a vehicle.
Some bikes that were not in good riding condition will be broken down into parts, Morrison said. All of the donations were loaded into a shipping container by Todd McDonald, operations manager for Bikes for the World.
Bikes that are in decent shape will be reconditioned, then sent off to places like Costa Rica, where residents can use them to get to their jobs, schools, and agencies that can further enhance their lives, saving precious time that typically is spent walking to such destinations. According to https://www.bikesfortheworld.org, the bikes are also used for vocational training in the mechanics of bicycle repair and service, which helps create jobs.
Among the many who came out to support Morrison with bikes, smiles, and helping hands were fellow Saint Joseph School alumnae Rachael Dong, Lydia Hayes, Jackson Morrison, Kareena Sood and Julia Stedman.
Morrison has been a member of the Thunder Ducks patrol of Troop 37 in Hedgesville for about four years but has spent a lifetime in Scouts. Her father was a Cub Scout leader, so Olivia always participated in events in which he was involved.
Her paternal grandparents heard about Bikes for the World marking its 20th anniversary this year and told Olivia about it, knowing she was searching for a worthy organization to support in her pursuit of the Eagle Award, the highest merit badge in Scouts.
She contacted Bikes for the World on Sept. 11 to see if she could help and the wheels immediately started turning. The agency’s mission appealed to Morrison, who learned about poverty in the Mountain State and how few transportation options there are for those struggling financially when she attended the Governor’s Honors Academy, a summer residential program meant to stimulate excellence in education for rising high school seniors in West Virginia.
“Keeping the bikes out of landfills or being thrown out in the woods” also fed her passion for sustainability, which she would like to study in college, along with environmental science and possibly engineering.
Morrison said her immediate family members are native West Virginians with a love for nature and protecting the environment.
“Apparently, I was obsessed with dirt as a kid,” said Morrison, who is a teaching assistant for a West Virginia University-proctored biology class at Spring Mills High. She considers rocks to be “physical pieces of earth history” and is fascinated by them.
She hopes to continue studying all things related to the environment in college. She applied to attend Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology, Bryn Mawr (Pennsylvania) College, William & Mary, in Williamsburg, Virginia, and the College of Charleston in South Carolina. She also was accepted in the Honors College at West Virginia University.
Morrison still has to complete a few more steps to see if she qualifies for the Eagle award but is proud of her project.
“We’ve made a really big difference,” she said.