Earn a Bike, (EAB) participants will learn to use tools to repair a bicycle they select from a number of bikes donated by individuals and bike shops throughout the Twin Cities. RezCycle will do this using a unique mobile bicycle shop build on a refurbished school bus that will bring the EAB program to the participant’s neighborhood. An older core group of local youth will be recruited to have the
opportunity to develop more advanced leaderships skills through training given to them prepare them to serve as RezCycle's volunteer Board of Directors. This is a proven youth development model borrowed from The Depot Coffee House which is led by a volunteer Board of Directors staffed by High School youth in Hopkins Minnesota. RezCycle will allow all participants to teach themselves set goals, follow through and create something that will help themselves and their community. It will provide them with needed safe and environmentally friendly transportation and exercise while learning valuable skills to refurbish and maintain their bicycle themselves. The youth participants should be able to trust in the shop as a “safe space” to work and take pride in refurbishing bicycles that otherwise would end up in landfills or scrap heaps. The meaning a safe-space is a place where they won’t be bullied or harassed by other kids or adults and will have an air of respect for the voice of all others. All will have their voices heard in and around the shop and on the Board of Directors. They will learn respect for the bike shop, staff, each other, the tools and their bicycle as well as how to ride safely and legally on roads and paths in the community. Another goal for participating youth is to create a bike shop that is conducive to the development of resilience where setbacks are met with encouragement and guidance toward perseverance. Failure will not be punished but valued for what can be learned. Practical things participants may gain include: leadership, accountability, responsibility, resourcefulness, creativity, problem solving skill, activity, and of course fun. The long term vision for this program is to develop a core group of local youth to graduate to take over this program’s operation in the future. This group could work with the local community leadership to develop things like bicycle lanes and trails connecting the communities of the White Earth Indian Reservation for youth and community members to ride safely on. The vision is that the mobile bike shop will be ran by and the youth board of directors that will continue to operate and teach other future youths. The full operation of the RezCycle Bike Shop Earn A Bike program began in the Spring and Summer of 2015.
-Alex Sigmundik
