Photo & Text Copyright 2009 Seattle Daily Photo. All rights reserved, including reproduction or republishing.
I just thought it was a pretty little bike shop and was curious about the attractive new awning that creates dry storage space underneath for the bikes hanging on the wall. It wasn't until I looked up Bike Works online that I found this is not just any common bike shop. Their mission: "To build sustainable communities by educating youth and promoting bicycling. We teach young people how to fix bikes, reward them with their own set of wheels, and provide affordable bicycle services to the community." Wow! This repair shop cares about its Columbia City and Rainier Valley neighborhood youth and beyond. They also have ventures to benefit all of Seattle and also Ghana. They teach repair classes and riding skills as well as providing repair services, used bikes for sale and parts. They accept donations to support their youth programs and people can volunteer to help in several ways. You can see the small signs that direct you to the "shop" and "classroom," and you can see the actual shop front here. What a great business and good neighbors the folks who run this seem to be. Is there anything like this in your area?
11 comments:
What a great job. I like it(Bike Works). My fellows always drive a car for traffic jam,oil consumption and air pollition. What a shame!
You are lucky.
what a nice photo and also the job. here in Indonesia, there are so many bicycle to use, yes, its still popular. But what a shame, people now prefer to use car or motorcycle if they can buy it.
Yep! There's a shop that sound very similar to this one in Berkeley. It's great, the parts are very cheap to buy and then they help you repair your bike for free.
This is why I LOVE CDP! WHere else would we hear this great stuff???? Thanks Kim for sharing this wonderful business.
V
There is a shop similar to this in Olympia. They accept donated bikes, then hold classes on repair, then give the repaired bikes to those who really need one. It's a great idea. Good topic.
What a super, creative and worthwhile venture. I applaud them. MB
It's wonderful to hear such good news like this! I like it when people find ways to help others based on their own interests. I'm happy to say that despite everything, many Filipinos manage to find ways to help each other. I haven't seen a civic-oriented bike shop though ;)
In Chicago we also have a "Bike Man" who accepts donations and then works with local youth to repair and rebuild them. In the end, the child receives the bicycle. I attempted to find more information about him, but was not successful. However when I ggogled this topic, I located several other similar organizations:
http://www.ibike.org/encouragement/youth-directory.htm
http://workingbikes.org/donate/dropoff
Isn't it wonderful to see so many individuals helping others?
Thanks for the blog. We check in every day!
What a great idea. Now if we can just get cities to be more "bike friendly" ...
Nice place! Biking is pretty big here, and there are some shops like this, but not nearly as pretty.
My best friend and I both bought our bikes from this shop. One of the managers, Kent, is a great guy and really helped us out when we were buying our first bikes as adults. 100% recommend this place :-)
Post a Comment