November hours are as follows:
Tuesdays – November 1, 8, 22, and 29 – 7 PM to 9 PM (closed November 15)
Thursdays – November 3 and 10 – 7 PM to 9 PM (closed November 17 and 24)
Sundays – November 6, 20, and 27 – Noon to 4 PM (closed November 13)
Saturday, November 26 – annual BLITZ! to benefit the United Way Holiday Wishes Program – 10 AM to 6 PM
The bicycle give-away count is up to 329, not including the 170 we gave to the Bob Burbach Free To Bike Foundation and the 100 we gave to Free Bikes 4 Kidz. We are also working on an exciting new program to provide bicycle mechanic training to teenage girls. Most of the youth bike programs attract boys, so we decided to reach out to girls in transition. If the program goes as planned, each trainee upon competing mechanic training will then get the chance to volunteer at the store and gain real-world job experience. Upon successful completion of the internship, the intern will be eligible for a letter of recommendation to use when looking for work. We hope to launch this in January.
We still have around 90 people on the wait list to get bicycles. The calls are still coming in. We don’t want to turn anyone away, but at this rate we won’t have any time to build bicycles ahead for the spring rush, which means that the delays will be even longer next year. We need mechanics. The volunteers we have are doing a fantastic job, but the list is just too long for this small group to keep up. Even if you can only repair one or two bicycles a month, we need you. If you have a shop at home, we can arrange for you to take a bike home to repair, then bring it back and get another one. If ten people did two bicycles per month, half our wait list would be wiped out by the end of the year, and we would be caught up by the end of January, giving us a few weeks to build bikes for the spring rush.
To our current volunteers, thank you. We couldn’t do this without each of you.