Located at the corner of 21st Ave. in South Minneapolis, just off I-94, the bike shop was started to provide a business for their mission to witness to the locals of Minneapolis. Scallywags sells refurbished bikes and provides a wide range of repairs. On Thursdays, volunteers can learn how to repair bicycles. A few months ago, the shop started distributing fair trade coffee to local coffee shops as well.


History
Scallywags’ connection with Rwanda started when Benjo Clark met Tom Ritchey, owner of Ritchey Design Inc., one of the leading bike parts companies in the cycling industry. Ritchey introduced Clark to Project Rwanda, a development initiative to help the people of Rwanda recover after the genocide that took place in
the mid ’90s.

Ritchey was helping to develop a sub-program initially called Wheels of Mercy, which was later renamed Coffee Bike. Designed to provide well-built bikes that could carry the large loads of coffee beans—one of the Rwanda’s largest exports—the organization assists farmers who have to transfer beans from the plantations to the mills.

Clark, viewing Rwandans as “people still carrying the weight (of the genocide), the fear …,” saw an opportunity to not only provide a tool, but also to help the Rwandans recover from what happened through the power of Christ. In mid-2007 Clark, Joe Goematt (Scallywags’ mechanic supervisor) and a few volunteers, some from North Central University, headed to Rwanda.

Since the first trip, the team has returned multiple times and aided in the building of over 1,800 Coffee Bikes with the help of the Rwandans. In addition to showing the Rwandans how to the build the bikes, the Scallywags team also taught them how to repair the bikes.

“It’s a lot of fun for me. There is a learning curve, putting a new tool in someone else’s hand. It’s going to take a while before they know how to use them,” Goematt said. “We’re learning how to teach them and they’re learning how to use the tools … it’s a journey together.”

Clark noted that the Rwandans go through bikes much faster than Americans do, so knowing how to maintain them is crucial. He also noted that since the project’s inception, he has seen the project move from not only helping coffee farmers but to helping farmers of other products.


Local impact
Stateside, 200 more Coffee Bikes are being used to increase the awareness of Project Rwanda and to distribute coffee to local coffee shops. Ikawa Coffee, another facet of Scallywags, Inc., distributes fair trade Rwandan coffee by bike to shops in the Minneapolis area.

“The customers get a quality product … they receive it in a way that they feel good, that they are actually helping change the world one bag at a time,” Clark said. “It’s a simple philosophy.”

Currently Ikawa Coffee delivers from Lowry Ave. NE to Minnehaha Creek in South Minneapolis, and from France Ave. to the Mississippi River. The coffee ranges in price from $9 to $50 and Ikawa promises to provide “your residence or business in Minneapolis with freshly roasted, cooperatively grown Rwandan coffee.”

Scallywags started with a simple idea as a “bike club” on the west bank of Minneapolis, moved to running their own shop, to finally helping a country in need, both home and abroad, through an idea that Clark said “is so fresh.”

“We’re scallywags that God can use,” Clark commented. “We’re nothing without God.”


ACTION POINT:
For more information about Scallywags bike shop and their services, visit www.scallywagsbikeshop.com. For more information about Ikawa Coffee visit www.Ikawacoffee.com, or stop in at the shop and see the Coffee Bikes.