Nonprofit organizations nationwide are utilizing bikes to uplift communities and empower individuals. Here’s how to get involved.
Bicycling | December 2021
Read the full story at bicycling.com.
Pedaling a bike yields joy, exploration, community, and fitness. Two-wheelers also offer a tremendous opportunity to change people’s lives. To promote that opportunity, a robust collection of bike-centric organizations nationwide are using bicycles to shift society in a more sustainable, creative, healed, and connected direction. Here are 14 of the country’s most unique, impactful groups-on-wheels—and how you can support them.
BICAS
Tucson, Arizona
The Bicycle Inter-Community Art and Salvage (BICAS) is a bicycle, art, education, and self-empowerment center that utilizes salvaged bike parts to develop bike-themed art pieces, commissioned public art like bike racks, and scrap parts for artistic projects. The nonprofit’s mission is to create anti-oppressive spaces through the shop, rides, and classes on a range of topics including wheel building, gears, and brakes, as well as special workshops such as the WTF (Women/Trans/Femme). There’s also a work-trade opportunity for individuals to earn credit toward a bike and a multi-day mechanics course for youth to learn-and-earn their own bicycle.
>Show Support: Donate money, office and art supplies, or bikes or sign up to volunteer.
BiCi Co. Center for Latino Progress
Hartford, Connecticut
Bici is short for bicicleta and Co. stands for comunidad. The BiCi Co. bike shop and program provides the Latino community with accessible, sustainable, fun transportation: repurposed bicycles plus hands-on bike mechanic education, repair space and mentorship, safety courses, and community events. There are also custom workshops, such as how to ride a bike, as well as service-learning projects for youth. Teenagers 13 to 19 years old can join an eight-week bike training program to learn maintenance, local bike history, safety, and build a customized bike. Students also receive bike lights, a helmet, and lock.
>Show Support: Donate funds, tune-up vouchers, old bikes, used parts and tools, or clean rags. Volunteer for events, youth earn-a-bike program, or as a mechanic.
Boise Bicycle Project
Boise, Idaho
Every kid needs a bike, according to The Boise Bicycle Project (BBP), which aims to uplift the mental health of youth while providing reliable transportation. The nonprofit is also on its way to donating thousands of reclaimed bicycles—plus helmets, lights, and locks—to kids of all ages through a variety of options. For instance, BBP partners with St. Luke’s Boise Medical Center for physicians to prescribe bicycles to children to support health issues. The nonprofit also offers adult programs such as Shifting Gears, which partners with the Idaho Department of Corrections for adults in custody to earn a bicycle by fixing bikes that are gifted to kids in the annual Holiday Kids Bike Giveaway.
>Show Support: Donate bikes, bicycles parts, or funds or become a volunteer.
Charlottesville Community Bikes
Charlottesville, Virginia
To address equity, access, and inclusion Charlottesville Community Bikes grants restored bikes free of cost to youth and adults in need. The crew also operates a full bike shop with refurbished rides for sale at low cost—$200 to $400—which funds the giveaways. Cyclists can work one-on-one with mechanics to learn how to fix their wheels and use the shop tools. The nonprofit also organizes mobile neighborhood bike repair clinics stocked with tools and parts.
>Show Support: A range of volunteer positions are available such as shop work, bike repair clinics, and administrative support. Folks can also make a fiscal donation or donate bikes and gear.
Community Cycling Center
Portland, Oregon
Every 365 days, the Community Cycling Center collects nearly 15,000 pounds of reclaimed bikes that are reused or sold. If parts cannot be recirculated, the metal is stripped for the salvage yard—typically more than 40,000 pounds is recycled per year. Discounted services and purchases are given to low and no-income cyclists, space is given to tinker on bikes, and needs-based services are curated for disabled and homeless community members.
In city-wide partnerships, the Community Cycling Center helps to make cycling accessible. One way they do so is with a STEM Education Bicycle Mechanics program for low-income youth. The community hub also proudly employs people of color, neurodivergent, gender non-conforming and LGBTQIA+ bicyclists.
>Show Support: Donate to the Community Cycling Center, one of their specific youth or community programs, or donate a bike.
Oasis Center
Nashville, Tennessee
More than 50 years after opening doors, the Oasis Center continues to offer a range of programs for struggling youth and families, from crisis intervention to leadership development including the six-week-long Bike Workshop. To date, more than 1,600 students have been paired with a volunteer mentor to build their own bike, learn about maintenance and repair, as well as safety and navigation skills. Students receive a helmet and took kit, too.
>Show Support: Donate to support the Bike Workshop or volunteer as a mentor.
Pedal It Forward
Bentonville, Arkansas
The service is simple, scalable, and impactful: Pedal It Forward collects gently used bicycles, fixes and polishes them up, and distributes those bikes to partners that deliver the wheels to low-income families, at-risk youth, minorities, and immigrants throughout the Northwest Arkansas region. The nonprofit also provides a helmet for each recipient. The partnership network includes more than sixty entities including mental health clinics, homeless shelters, recovery and reentry programs, probation offices, drug courts, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
>Show Support: Donate a bike, bike parts, or money. Volunteer as a bike mechanic or to work an event.
Project Bike Tech
Nationwide
Launched in the Bay Area, California, Project Bike Tech curriculum is burgeoning in high schools nationwide from Oklahoma to Vermont to Minnesota. The program teaches young adults bicycle mechanics, STEM elements, and career-building skills. Students that complete the course feel more confident with entering the work field, are exposed to a healthy and eco-friendly lifestyle, and some even pursue careers in the bike industry.
>Show Support: Donate to the nonprofit.
Project Hero
Nationwide
Veterans and First Responders impacted by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), and physical injuries can join Project Hero to rehabilitate their mental and physical wellness, supported by a community and two wheels. On road and singletrack, the group events range from multi-day Ride 2 Recovery Challenges to single-day Project Hero Honor Rides and fundraisers, along with community rides. The organization also builds and donates adaptive bikes and donates two-wheel bicycles.
>Show Support: Register to ride alongside veterans and first responders at an event, volunteer at an event, provide partnership through goods and services—such as a lunch or dinner stop along the route—or donate to a rider or the organization. Learn more here.
Reno Bike Project
Reno, Nevada
To proactively influence city development and cycling rights, the Reno Bike Project focuses on advocacy. The team works with public officials and holds key positions with local organizations to help shape transportation plans, such as the Nevada State Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Advisory Board, Safe Routes to Schools, and the Regional Transportation Commission’s Citizens. The nonprofit simultaneously recirculates used bikes in the community, organizes a spectrum of events, and hosts mechanics workshops.
>Show Support: Donate money or used tools, bikes, bike parts or various office and shop supplies.
Ride For Racial Justice
Nationwide
This nonprofit’s mission is to ensure safe spaces for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in the cycling community by offering education and access to resources in the sport. Ride For Racial Justice organizes regional community rides on Colorado’s Front Range where BIPOC can meet and allies can join. (National chapters are also in the pipeline.) The organization also leads an annual partnership with SBT GRVL, a gravel race in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, to provide a cohort of 25 BIPOC athletes from across the country with a race entry, training plan, travel and accommodations stipend, and case-by-case equipment. An additional 25 BIPOC athletes will receive a reserved race spot and financial support to help cover registration.
>Show Support: Join the community rides as an ally, volunteer your skills and time—such as at the community events or assisting with social media—or donate to support the STB GRVL BIPOC cohort of 25 athletes.
Silver Stallion Bicycle and Coffee
Gallup, New Mexico
This bike-and-coffee shop nonprofit helps to empower youth and adults by teaching them bicycle repair skills and how to serve specialty java. The Silver Stallion’s team of five mechanics, who are trained through the Advanced Park Tool Bicycle Mechanic curriculum, operate a Mobile Ride Center throughout the 27,000-square-mile Dinétah (a Navajo Nation where not one single bike shop exists) and Gallup, providing complimentary bike repair at schools and community gatherings. The organization also hosts a National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) team for Diné kids in the Navajo Nation and local youth beyond the reservation.
>Show Support: Donate to the organization and the Outride Fund will provide a 1-for-1 match. After the campaign is reached, donate to the Silver Stallion Bike Program.
Sacred Cycle
Vail, Colorado
In a nonconventional approach, Sacred Cycle combines the power of traditional therapy and mountain biking to help female victims of sexual trauma, abuse, and assault heal. The nonprofit was founded by Heather Russell, a licensed professional counselor with a masters in transpersonal counseling psychology and a personal trauma survivor. The organization serves participants with funds for therapy, group and community rides, mountain bikes, gear, coaching, individual and peer support, and crisis assistance. It also holds an annual five-month program with group and community rides that finishes with an annual retreat for participants that become a lasting support network for those involved.
>Show Support: Apply to volunteer or donate to the organization.
Trails for Youth
Springfield, Virginia
Based on the periphery of Washington, D.C., Trails for Youth facilitates mentorship for underserved and at-risk youth through biking, including providing the equipment and transportation to instruction and adventures on wheels. The organization helps to expand safe spaces for riding like the Brookfield Park skills area, and created a counselor-in-training volunteer role and junior counselor position for teens to work as group leaders for the younger ones.
>Show Support: Donate to the ongoing program.
