Africa-Press – Namibia. MANNIE Heymans of Mannie’s Bike Mecca recently donated cycling clothing and equipment to the Physically Active Youth organisation in Katutura.
Heymans launched an initiative last year to collect second-hand clothing and equipment from his customers and the campaign soon became very successful, as he elaborates.
“We’ve got a lot of cyclists in Namibia, we are growing day by day and so many of them have got old kit lying around in their cupboards, so I took it upon myself to open up an avenue for customers to actually donate all this kit that they don’t use any more,” he said.
“Customers had the opportunity to drop it off at the shop and some of the kits are still brand new, but they have either outgrown it or they want something new, so it’s just lying there. I think we have collected about 250 shirts, 250 pants, shoes and helmets – it’s just insane how the community got together and donated all of this clothing,” he added.
Heymans said he decided to donate it to PAY due to the good work that they are doing under their cycling coach Japhet Amukushu.
“I thought with what Japhet is doing with Physically Active Youth, they should get the opportunity to get some of this kit. I see the guys riding all over the place and their kit is not what it should be, but now at least they will get the proper kit from our community,” he said.
Amukushu expressed his gratitude for the donation.
“It’s a big honour and privilege because now we can have more riders from the community, and this also caters for the Windhoek on Bike initiative that we have as part of the PAY programme. Now we will be able to put more people on bikes and hopefully get them to races as well,” he said.
“We are very grateful to Mannie, it’s not the first thing that he is doing for us – he does a lot for the junior riders, he is always there to help us and we just want to show our appreciation for that,” he added.
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