A Bike Ride with a Purpose
Cranksgiving is a food drive on two wheels; part bike ride, part food drive, and part scavenger hunt. It's been held annually in New York City since 1999. Every year, throughout the country, Cranksgiving events help provide thousands of needy families with a wealth of food during the week of Thanksgiving. For the fifth year in a row, we're including Cedar Rapids in this national movement!
Pump up your tires, grab your helmet, lights, lock, your navigational skills and $15-$20 to purchase food. Registration/check-in starts in the NewBo City Market at 10am with some caffeinated essentials from our friends, Roasters NewBo. We invite you to support local and grab some breakfast from one of the many great NewBo Shopkeepers. You'll be provided a manifest with a list of food items to buy from specific grocery stores around town, and time before the official start to strategize your route. At 11am we'll roll out and it's up to you to navigate yourself to each grocery store 'checkpoint' to purchase the specific food items on our list. Once you've acquired everything on the list you must deliver the goods to the Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry and make it back down to the NewBo Market for our finish-line + after party. Every item from our manifest that you purchase/donate earns you a raffle ticket to enter for a chance to take home some RAD prizes from our favorite neighborhood businesses! Your completed manifest, including all of your receipts, also earns you a free pint from Lion Bridge Brewing Company and a RAD Cranksgiving CR printed kerchief from our homies at Bike Rags.
2019 was the last year we brought the community together for this experience, and you all helped us donate a literal ton (2000lbs!) of non-perishable food and hygiene items to the food pantry. Absolutely incredible. Lets see if we can top that together this year!
The Loaves & Fishes is a food pantry located in Tanager Place at 1030 5th Ave. SE Suite 1700. It is a joint ministry of Westminster Presbyterian Church and Christ Episcopal Church. Their guiding principles are to treat everyone with respect and offer as much choice and dignity as possible. Every Tuesday from 3 to 5 p.m between 100-200 people come to the pantry for a box of food organized and distributed by volunteers. In turn, that food reaches about 1,500 individuals each month. Clients are typically poor, old, unemployed, disabled, homeless, abandoned, veterans mentally ill and single parents. Visit the Loaves & Fishes website (https://www.crwpc.org/loaves-and-fishes) for more information about Loaves & Fishes Food Pantry and how you can continue to contribute to this invaluable resource.
Contact Logan at Goldfinch Cyclery with any questions // (319) 775-0203 or INFO@GOLDFINCHCYCLERY.COM