I serve on the board of a small non-profit, The Bike Depot, whose mission is to support health and active living by increasing access to bicycles, promoting safe, bike-friendly environments and advocating for policies that promote bicycle access and use. While most of the work I do for the Depot is behind the scenes organizational development and administrative ops type stuff, I generally swing by the shop two or three days a week to see what's going on and check in with the staff management team.
Whether the scene is Fix Yer Bike, when anyone can come in and have access to the shop to learn how to fix their own bike with our highly skilled mechanic volunteers....Or a program night when Earn-a-Bike participants are learning basic maintenance skills in preparation for taking home a bike....Or volunteers prepping bikes for program distribution or sale...Or a group taking a class on anything from patching a tire to performing detailed and complex repairs....Or our certified mechanics doing commercial service....Or a meeting where our staff and board are creating connections to the community to deliver on our mission, the energy is amazing!
The Depot's programs are supported by community grants and donations and income from retail sales and commercial service. We carry a nice line-up of both new and used bikes and accessories. If we don't have it in stock, we can get it.
We always need donations of bikes and bike parts! We re-use, re-purpose and recycle!
Here are a few pics from last night's Fix Yer Bike:
What a wonderful initiative! Such a brilliant idea!!!!
ReplyDeleteThat sounds so amazingly like our diy-type shop (Edmonton Bicycle Commuters - EBC) except your photos make the shop look incredibly huge and spacious.
ReplyDeleteI love how volunteer oriented it is and how once you put your foot in the door (be it as a volunteer or just regular fixer of bikes) there's an entire community WITHIN the community!
It truly is a great organization. It started out primarily servicing our neighborhood and has grown to see program participants and customers from all over the metro area!! We're very much in growth mode and have so much potential. It's very exciting!
ReplyDeleteThe space is actually pretty big. This is just the shop area. We also have a front of the house space that houses retail, volunteer kiosk, front-desk, etc.