All these bikes are sent to prison for the best possible reason ever and no, they will not be given to inmates to offer them a glimpse of hope that one day they could pedal away from jail.

For the past 18 years, inmates at Mike Durfee State Prison have been restoring old broken down bicycles. They tear them apart and rebuild them, one by one, paying a lot of attention to details and restoring these used up bikes back to life.

Hundreds of bikes are collected each year in South Dakota, and through the prison’s ‘Pedal Power from the Pen’ program, inmates get the chance to learn technical skills by repairing bikes and it’s also a way to give something back to the community.

The restored bikes are given away to underprivileged children from South Dakota or in communities where these bicycles are needed the most. Some of the bikes also go to the children of prisoners.

As the Mike Durfee State Prison representatives specify on their Facebook page, most of these bikes are abandoned or found thrown away because they are to broken down to be of any use without proper repair.

“Unclaimed bicycles headed to the Mike Durfee State Prison to be given a new life and be later distributed to children that otherwise may not have the chance to have a bicycle. Each year many bicycles are picked up by officers that citizens call in as abandoned. Unfortunately some of those bicycles go unclaimed.

These along with bicycles that are donated are taken to the Mike Durfee Prison in Springfield SD for the “Pedal Power from the Pen” program. These bicycles are taken to Mike Durfee and refurbished by inmates. The bicycles are then put back into service by underprivileged children around the state of South Dakota that cannot afford their own bicycle.” according to the Mike Durfee State Prison page.

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