BAINBRIDGE — Getting 400 donated bicycles to 14 remote villages in Togo is no easy task.

This year Adrian Mason and his mother, Maria, have an even tougher challenge – delivering 1,200 bikes to 50 villages next month.

“This is a much bigger and a much more expensive program that we got going on this time,” Adrian said.

The islanders have spent the last four years working to procure used bikes for the Bicycles for Education project, part of the nonprofit Global Alliance for Community Empowerment (GACE). The goal is to provide two-wheeled transportation to children trying to get to schools that are often 20 kilometers away from their homes — a distance that makes education unavailable to a majority of the country’s children.

This is the second shipment of bikes to the tiny, impoverished West African nation the pair is overseeing. And the project continues to gather momentum.

“This has had a huge community involvement,” Maria said. “The Rotary Club, Kiwanis, Island Cycle, Classic Cycle, Reliable Storage have given us two storage units. Even the police department calls us and gives us unclaimed bikes. It is just awesome.”

The program kick-started after Adrian and Maria met GACE co-founder Olowo-n’djo Tchala at Bumbershoot in 2004. Tchala, a native of Togo, co-owns the skin care company Alaffia, which uses fair-trade, Togo-produced shea butter in its products. More than 10 percent of Alaffia sales go to GACE projects with the aim of empowering the Togolese people.

With their past successes, Bicycles for Education is reaching beyond the boundaries of the island. Collection drives have popped up in Stanwood, Olympia, Issaquah and even Salem, Ore.

“We are just a leg of it now,” Maria said. “There is a high school teacher in Olympia who is using this project to help his troubled students. This has been a focus for them … it’s changed their lives.”

It is a stark contrast to the Masons’ first attempts at collecting bikes around Kitsap. They used to sign up community members and individually pick up each bike, whether in Bainbridge or Bremerton.

“We got about 50 names the first time we signed people up at Central Market,” Adrian said. “And it took two to three months to pick them up because of everyone’s different schedules.”

Now the bikes are flowing in year round, requiring more volunteers (and more money) to keep the expanding project running.

In early July, community volunteers and Alaffia employees removed tires and pedals and loaded three shipping containers chock-full of bikes, utilizing every last gap in the steel gridlock to squeeze in spare parts, glasses and even sewing machines. Adrian estimates it cost around $40,000 to ship the bikes to Togo. It will take more than two months for the bikes to arrive at the port.

“It’s taking the slow boat to China,” Maria said of the shipment. “We’re using a new company. They used to get there in six weeks, but they have to travel 7,200-something miles to get there.”

This year’s trip to Togo is throwing the Masons some curve balls that are bound to make the journey a bit bumpy along the way. Torrential rains in Togo have caused major flooding, displacement and road outages, making the five-hour journey to the northern part of the country a potential two-day affair. The sheer number of bikes also means that finding truck drivers to transport them may be difficult and complicated. On top of this, the longer shipping time means Adrian will not be able to make the trip. He’ll be attending Colgate University in upstate New York.

“I am sad but there is nothing I can do,” Adrian said. “You do all this work and you really want to go over there and see their reactions because it is just incredible.”

“It’s really the cherry on top,” Maria said. “There were many times when we are asking, ‘Why are we doing this?’ This is a full-time job and (Adrian) could be out with his friends and he’s out there writing grants. But to be there and see the sheer joy and 400 people hugging and embracing. They are so, so happy, it’s phenomenal.”

Replacing Adrian on the journey will be his sister, Brittain, who will take time off of her job in New York to accompany her mother to Togo. They expect to arrive on Sept. 20 and spend about two weeks in the country.

Despite the setbacks Maria is looking forward to the massive undertaking. For her, the motivation is in the tangible progress the country is making.

“Sure, I am worried about the condition of the country because of the rains. They have displaced 10,000 to 20,000 people, and food has gone up 200 percent,” she said. “But this project is working and (children) are going back to school.”