Improving Mobility for all During Vibrant Volunteer Week

COLOGNE, Germany - Vibrant Volunteer Week, which took place at the end of May, saw Ford employees dedicate hundreds of volunteer hours and Ford Fund provide more than €20,000 of grant funding to support non-profits with mobility-related activities. 

This year, the aim was to help everyone stay mobile, stay safe, and use sustainable transportation solutions for transporting people or vital services.

Projects included “Smiles on Wheels, a volunteering event with Lukas Foundation, a non-profit focused on supporting those with severe multiple disabilities.  Volunteers jumped in to ride specially adapted bicycles to transport young people and their families in both Madrid and Alicante.

In Valencia, volunteers helped to assemble and refurbish donated bicycles for families staying at the Casa Ronald McDonald house, a centre where families with children in hospital can stay so they are close by and can be fully involved in their child’s care.  The bicycles will help families to make short trips to the hospital, supermarkets and pharmacies.

In the UK, Ford cyclists joined RideLondon with some doing so in support of The Bike Project, a charity that take in second-hand bikes, refurbish them and donate them to refugees and asylum seekers. At the other end of the country, in Manchester, volunteers joined the charity, Simply Cycling, to help them to run cycling sessions and paint shipping containers where bikes are stored. Simply cycling are an all ability cycling community that provide all kinds of bikes, included adaptive bikes so that no matter what age, personal need or ability, anyone can participate.

In Hungary, working with the AmCham Foundation, volunteers donated over 50 bikes and scooters to children in need and checked and refurbished each one. In addition, Ford Hungary dedicated their annual Children’s Day to volunteering and hosted 50 residents from the five institutions of Bokréta Shelters Home. The day’s events included road safety training, VR and virtual driving, technical presentations and other fun activities.

Debbie Chennells, Ford Fund manager commented: “I want to send a big thank you to all our Ford volunteers and charities who participated in Vibrant Volunteer Week 2023. This year to complement Ford’s Park the Car Campaign, we wanted to encourage projects that focused on active mobility as a way to help those in need.”