Good evening,
It's been a while since I updated this blog, but I'll make it worth the wait for you. Today we held our first annual Bike Tradeup Day at the shop. With a minimum of advertising we attracted dozens of attendees and raised over $500. Even bigger than the publicity and fundraising was the experience of seeing people of all ages light up over the chance to ride a bike - some for the first time, and others for the first time since they were young. My favorite person of the day was Sarah, she came to us in the morning with her parents and the bike that she's been riding with training wheels for the last 2 years. She was afraid to ride it because she hadn't learned to balance yet. I showed her Dad how to take off the pedals and teach her how to scoot along by pushing her feet along the ground. She made this into a game of pushing off and seeing how far she could go before putting her feet down. This was automatically teaching her how to catch herself safely to prevent a fall. She picked out a different bike that fits her better and she left with her parents to ride on the rail-trail. They came back a few hours later to show me how she had learned to ride ALL BY HERSELF. Families like Sarah's make this one of the greatest ways to spend volunteer time. Sarah's parents also picked out bikes so they can now all go riding together.
Many other people came in and brought old bikes to donate and trade. We ended up with many more bikes than we started the day with. Special thanks to all the volunteers who helped make the day such a success including Jeremy Alio, Will Ravenscroft, John Lozier, Paul White, John Williams (?) and Joe Sallmen. We also recruited a few new volunteers from the event and we look forward to working with you in the future.
