SALEM, N.H. — Looming over a dilapidated Puerto Rican town from his mountain bike at the top of an unmarked trailhead in 2016, Trent Sanders had an idea.
A wandering mountain biker globetrotting the world out of a van, Sanders and his friend, Andrew Wallace, a professional biker in his youth, went to Puerto Rico to tackle one of the world’s hardest downhill mountain bike trails they’d ever heard of.
From the peak, straddling their professional bikes and fitted in custom gear, they shared an epiphany.
“We realized that we were riding in communities that didn’t have a ton,” Sanders said. “We just realized it’d be so fulfilling to give back to that community.”
A few weeks after Sanders and Wallace left the island, Hurricane Maria struck. The community and trails they loved to explore were ruined and more than 4,500 people were dead. Together, they rounded up a group of people to rebuild the trails and bring bikes to kids in the community.
When Sanders returned to New Hampshire, he pulled a few junky bikes out of his basement and called the Lazarus House in Lawrence to see if he could donate them.
“They said I couldn’t just give four kids bikes, I had to give 50 kids bikes and we thought, ‘Alright, let’s try this,’ and it worked,” Sanders said. “That was the start of Mutt Society.”
Eight years later, the nonprofit, cofounded by Sanders, 45, and Wallace, 38, donates around 800 bikes to underprivileged youth each year and the Lazarus House is still a recipient. A well-known staple in the community, the Lazarus House offers community, food, shelter, clothing and advocacy services to those in need.
Though Mutt Society’s main mission is to get kids on bikes, everyone deserves the freedom and privilege of transportation, Sanders said. The bikes, stored by the hundreds in a trailer behind Sanders’s place of work, are donated by individuals and families and purchased by the nonprofit at discounted rates from local bike stores, which sometimes donate to the cause, like Trek Concord and Cycles Etc.
Bikes are donated to individuals and small groups year round but donated in bulk once a year as part of the nonprofits bike drive.
“Every single drive we do, there’s a kid with tears in his or her eyes that is absolutely blown away that they own a bike,” Sanders said. “And it’s not a 4-year-old, it’s an 18-year-old. Each year, I teach someone that’s 17 or 18 how to ride a bike.”
With each donation, Sanders said he hopes that, for however long each kid uses their bike, they’ll remember that someone cares about them, like his first bike did for him when he was 19. Reeling from a loss and near the end of his rope, Sanders dusted off his bike, brought it up to Highland Mountain in Northfield and let go.
“That’s my survivor story and why I put so much into biking because that thing pretty much saved my life,” he said. “It was my freedom, it was clearing the mind, it was my church.”
To give that feeling to others is priceless.
“You know the ones that actually need it. They way they look at you, the way they say thank you, the way they carry themselves,” Sanders said. “The kids that need it the most are the kids that think they’re the bad kids.”
To donate a bike or learn more about Mutt Society, visit muttsociety.org