Wells Fargo ran a Build-A-Bike® charity team building event at The Westin Charlotte in Charlotte, North Carolina on August 21, 2026. Six hundred new hires and analysts competed through team challenges, assembled 100 bicycles, and donated them to Trips for Kids Charlotte, a nonprofit that gives young people in the region access to cycling and outdoor adventure.
Wells Fargo is one of the largest financial services companies in the United States. Their New Hire program brings incoming employees together before their careers formally begin, using shared experiences to establish the team culture new hires will carry forward.
How 600 Wells Fargo New Hires Built 100 Bikes in 90 Minutes at Build-A-Bike® in Charlotte, NC
One hundred bicycles in 90 minutes requires a format that holds 600 people focused at the same time. Build-A-Bike® does that by dividing large groups into smaller competing teams, each working in parallel through structured challenges that earn bike components. The structure gives everyone a team to compete for and keeps the energy distributed across the room rather than concentrated at the front.
The participant mix strengthened the event. Most of the 600 new hires had never worked together before. The challenge rounds put them into immediate coordination, dividing tasks, communicating under pressure, trusting new colleagues. Those dynamics are hard to manufacture in an orientation session. They happened naturally here because the format required it.
Trips for Kids Charlotte was on the receiving end of the donation. The nonprofit creates access to cycling, recreation, and outdoor adventure for young people in the Charlotte community. One hundred bikes from a single corporate event extends their reach significantly. Each bike was built by a team of new colleagues who understood where it was going, and that knowledge kept the work purposeful from the first challenge to the final assembly.
We’d like to thank Wells Fargo for building a New Hire program that left Charlotte with something real.
Looking for a charity team building activity for a large on-boarding group or corporate event? Build-A-Bike® works at any scale and gives every participant a team to compete for and a donation worth building.