Photos courtesy of Christine George

Virginia Tech honors students (from left, below) Corrine Watson, Christine George, Jessica Martin and Seth Barner raised $10,600 to buy 106 Kona bikes (some of which are shown above) that went to Mozambique this past fall.

A donated bike sits among a group of people in Mozambique. Virginia Tech student Christine George organized a fundraising effort with three other honors students and raised $10,600, buying 106 Kona bikes that went to Mozambique this past fall.

BLACKSBURG -- Virginia Tech student Christine George was in Mali in July 2007, collecting mosquitoes for a research project on infectious diseases when she had a life-altering moment.

She had arrived in a small village when a visibly ill woman named Kumba wandered out of her hut. Kumba was suffering from a deadly but treatable form of malaria, but she lived more than 50 miles from a medical center.

As is the case with many towns in Africa, there was no available transportation. George knew immediately that if Kumba was going to survive, they would have to get her to a hospital -- so they dropped their work and loaded her in a van.

"She had a young son," George said, "and she had no husband because he had died from fever a few years earlier. The doctor later came up and told me, 'If you hadn't brought her in here, she would have died, and this child would have lost his mother.' "

When George returned to the United States, she looked for some way she could help improve the situation in Africa, where few reliable cars or even bicycles exist in rural areas.

Then, she saw an e-mail from Christine McIntyre, Tech's assistant director of the honors program.

McIntyre, an avid cyclist, read about the Kona AfricaBike project, which is run in cooperation with Bristol Myers Squib and Bicycling magazine.

For every two bikes sold in the U.S., a bicycle is donated to a health-care worker in Africa to bring medicine to people or fitted with gurneys to transport patients to medical centers.

"I just put out an e-mail saying if bicycles, health-care workers and helping third-world countries all seems to make sense to you, come talk to me," McIntyre said. "And Christine kept coming back to me, saying 'If no one's taking this, it's mine.'

"She really took ownership of the project," added McIntyre, who describes George as an intelligent and determined person.

With her experience in Mali, George recognized that the impact of a single bike can be dramatic.

"They can see five to eight more patients a day with just one of these bikes," she said. "That's huge."

The bikes are specially designed for long-term work in harsh conditions. They have a steel frame and industrial grade, puncture resistant tires as well as a step-through design that allows women in skirts to easily get on and off the bikes.

Additionally, the people who receive bikes are trained to maintain them, and the whole program is monitored by nongovernmental organizations to make sure there is no abuse or neglect of duties.

The bikes are about $100 each, but this is still out of reach for most of the people who need them most. So the majority of the funding comes from international donations.

Christine George

All of this inspired George, now 22, to get involved.

She organized a fundraising effort with three other honors students -- Corrine Watson, Jessica Martin and Seth Barner -- and raised $10,600, buying 106 Kona bikes that went to Mozambique this past fall.

But George did not stop there. She wanted to make sure that the bikes got where they were supposed to, so she traveled to Mozambique, where her donation of bikes was being delivered.

George was there for one week and said they had just two days to assemble 250 bikes. They put a call out for volunteers from local villages, and 40 people showed up because, according to George, they knew how valuable the bikes were.

For George, it is important to communicate that value and how genuinely the bicycles are appreciated.

"Yes, you are giving a thing," George said, "but you are giving these things to people who live, breathe and feel, and they appreciate it so much."

According to her parents, Michael and Connie George, she has always had a gift for recognizing a need and putting forth extraordinary effort to make change happen.

"As a youngster and a teenager," her father said, "Christine volunteered countless hours of service to her community. She fed the homeless, repaired homes for the needy, sang in nursing homes, mentored students and collected donations for young children staying with their moms in battered women's shelters."

So, it is not surprising that George plans to make a career of helping others.

Christine McIntyre

George, who graduated last year with an honors degree in biology, is working on a master's degree in public and international affairs, and plans to enter medical school so she can work on the infectious disease problem in Africa.

And in the meantime, she and McIntyre are working on a spring fundraiser to extend the Kona AfricaBike effort at Virginia Tech.

To get involved, watch for information at www.univhonors.vt.edu or go to the official Web site at www.konabiketown.com.