Renew America Success Stories

Community Cycling Center

Description

The Community Cycling Center raises awareness among Portland's youth about energy efficiency, ecology and community sustainability through bicycling. Started by director Brian Lacy in spring 1994, the Center offers community cycling clubs, bike repair clinics, vocational training and more. Disadvantaged youth are eligible to earn their own bicycles by participating in a bike repair workshop.

Using the bike as an illustration of energy-efficient local transportation, Lacy has built a program that goes well beyond bike safety and enjoyment. "The goal of the program," says Lacy, "is to provide a laboratory for learning about long-term economic sustainability."

To this end the Center uses bikes to teach about business, community and ecology. They offer bike clubs whose weekly rides illustrate local history, ecology and human interest. Participants also engage in community service projects aimed at community building and natural resource conservation, including plans to deliver food to shelters during upcoming rides. Finally, participants in the programs can apply to vocational training workshops to learn marketable skills, including shop management, bike repair and editorial production.

The Center helped repair and paint 100 bicycles for the United Community Action Network's Share-a-Ride program in Portland, which scattered the bikes along downtown street corners and made them available to the public free of charge. The programs only requirement is that the bikes be returned to busy public street corners so they remain available for the next use. "It costs at most about three cents a mile to propel a bike," says Lacy, "and 35 cents a mile to propel even a small car the same distance."

Program Highlights

Earn a Bike

• Local youths enroll in this program to learn bike repair skills on bikes donated by the public. The rehabilitated bikes are then sold to the community at an affordable price, or exchanged for community service.
• Youths who enter the program with no bike of their own earn a bike to repair as their own.
• After completing the Earn a Bike program, participants can apply to participate in a variety of job training programs, including shop management, mechanics vocational training, editorial production, and sales, among others.

• Club Rides are weekly supervised rides sponsored by the Center that build riding skills and teach participants about the culture, history and ecology of the local community.
• Routes are selected to emphasize one of four rotating goals: riding skills, local interest, ecological exploration and community service. In cooperation with local schools and community groups, the clubs visit elders and community leaders to learn community and cultural histories. In cooperation with local environmental groups, the clubs tour areas of ecological interest, including areas of rehabilitation and degradation.
• Clubs engage in community service activities, including graffiti and trash removal, tree planting, gardening, food delivery and gleaning (removing overlooked and still-edible fruits and vegetables from orchards and farms after the traditional harvest has occurred).

• Bike to School and Back is a program designed to teach participants to bike to school safely in groups.
• Participants learn about the ecological advantages of bicycles over cars as a form of reliable, safe transportation.

• Just under way, the Trailer Project will bring Portland-area high school youth together to design, build and market bicycle trailers to haul groceries, tools, and other goods. The trailers will be made from old bicycle frames and wheels, and students will be involved in all production phases of the trailers, from consumer research and writing a business plan, to designing the trailers on CAD (computer assisted design) software, to fabrication and marketing.

• Youth aged 16-20 are taught the skills necessary to repair bicycles and to operate a bicycle shop.

• Basic and advanced classes are offered to train adults in bike repair. Adults are trained to fix their own bicycles, or to train youths in the art of bike repair.

• The Center provides free safety checks and repairs offered through community organizations and schools.

Vital Statistics

Program Management/Partnerships: The Community Cycling Center is a nonprofit organization. Riding programs receive generous support from NIKE's P.L.A.Y. program and the Northwest Service Academy, an AmeriCorps program. The Center works in cooperation with the Boys & Girls Club, Cub Scouts, Friends of Trees, GreenCorp, Habitat for Humanity, Housing Authority of Portland, Housing Our Families, Outside In, Private Industry Council, Portland Community Gardens, Portland Public Schools, Sabin Community Development Corporation, Southeast Portland Impact, United Community Action Network.

Budget: In revision.

Community Served: The youth of the Portland area. Replication of some of the Center's programs have begun in Gresham, OR and Cornelius, OR, both of which have large low-income communities. Work in Cornelius will focus on the migrant Hispanic community.

Measures of Success:

• More than 800 bikes have been diverted from landfills in the Portland area.
• In 1994, more than 3,000 people were served in all programs combined.
• In 1994, the Center recycled 340 bikes and trained 20 adults who lead 80 Earn a Bike workshops.
• In 1994, 20 youth participated in job training workshops sponsored by the Center.
• In 1994, the Center led 130 youth on 40 rides with 25 trained volunteers.
• The Center, in conjunction with the House of Umoja (a residential program for ex-gang members), has organized a ride for 10 house residents.
• With support from the Imani Women's Support Center, the Center has offered regular basic repair skill courses to youths aged 13-20 in high-risk, high-crime neighborhoods.
• 300 youth bicycle helmets have been distributed.
• 365 bikes have been brought into the Center's headquarters for low-cost repair.
• After completion of the Trailer Project, the Center plans to sponsor bike rides that will use the trailers to deliver food to the needy and to transport tools for community gardens.

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