Regarding the "don't just put bikes out for free use..." comments, I've already learned that the hard way - having spent the better part of my summer restoring about 25 bikes. The students here (Mercersburg Academy) enjoyed them but it doesn't take very many irresponsible students to ruin the party for everyone.

The goal now is to create the space (shopfront, work bays and collection of necessary parts bins) and then let other tinkerers like me start to show up. Mercersburg is so small it has nothing in the way of bike repair shop - but it's also a gorgeous part of the world to bike in. I'm pretty sure that this falls into the heading of "If you build it, they will come" catagory.

The overall grant is more like $20K but it has to be set up to be self sustaining - thus the idea of maintaining a fleet of rental (NOT loaner) bikes to bring in some money. The $5000 budget is for that, but yes, to the greatest extent possible we're planning on taking donations and restoring. I'm the sort of OCD guy who has a semi fleet in my basement already, restored as a hobby. We certainly won't be buying new as there isn't anything new for sale for less than $1500 that I'd want to buy. Besides, we're all about history down here in South Central PA. :-)

As to where the grant money came from - it's pretty much unique to Mercersburg Academy so I don't think I have much advice to give others (sorry about that)