What an incredible summer it has been for the Alley Bike Club here on the 2700 block of Pleasant. This summer the club established itself as a neighborhood hub that kids come to expect. As I walked through Whittier Park this summer, kids would ask me "When is the bike shop going to be open?" They came by the dozen needing tubes, chains, or a place to belong, to fend off boredom, to find new friends, new skills, and some solid self-esteem.

We were open 2-3 days a week all summer for a total of over 150 hours. We helped over 50 kids keep their bikes up and running, patching tires, tightening brakes, replacing cables, putting on pedals, tightening chains, installing pegs - just about any kind of bike repair imaginable. At times, the club was an absolute whirlwind of frenetic activity. At other times one kid worked on her bike in solitude for hours. We gave out 25 new u-locks to help protect bikes from theft. We stripped down the inoperable bikes and built up others.

Notably, the Alley Bike Club partnered this summer with Lamin Jarju, an immigrant from the tiny country of Gambia, West Africa to send over fifty of our bicycles on a container ship to his native land. This is the first partnership of this type for our club, one that we hope to continue next year and beyond.

This summer it became clear that more than just a biking program, we are a youth development program. For the first time, two of our kids have gained enough skill to merit the title "Bike Leaders" and can now do many repairs on their own. These two are now mentoring younger kids, "Bike Assistants". We need better titles for these positions but that'll come. I was intrigued by the model that Youth Farm and Market uses where kids more through different stages of responsibility as they grow older. Something along those lines is emerging in our program as well.

The ABC is also a place of language and culture. We added several new languages to our wall this summer including Tibetan, Nepali, and Mandinka. All the languages on our wall were actually spoken here at one time or another. Language and culture happen so naturally in this place. Our space aims to be one of tolerance and integration. Many cultures mingle here peacefully and the tone this summer was overwhelmingly positive with respect to all the different cultures. Over bikes we talked about real stuff - identity, conflict resolution, family problems. Kids opened up more this year.

Budget 2011:

Cash on hand at beginning: $131

income:
Bike sales/repairs: $3,000

Liabilities:
Staff: $2,460
Supplies: $ 611
Total: $ 3071

Current cash on hand: $60

GOALS 2012:

• Further develop our work as an experimental neighborhood bike program for youth and families.



• Communicate clear youth development goals, mission, and vision through varied media. Fine-tune our outreach to organizations and individual bicycle donors.



• Improve the physical area of our space, including traffic calming elements that alert motorists on our alley that they are entering a "kid zone" and should proceed carefully.



• Continue to give youth Bike Leaders greater and greater responsibility for the every day workings of the shop.



• Partner with other emerging bike programs to learn from them and share our successes and challenges and expand our type of work to more and more people in Minneapolis.



• Lay the groundwork for a long-term sustainable model whether that be as an independant non-profit, partnership with another organization, an LLC or some other model.

The Alley Bike Club thanks all of the generous people who donated bicycles, Sunrise Cyclery, ReCycle, and Quality Bike Parts, and the Wellstone Bike Club, our partner program of Minneapolis Public Schools.

We look forward to 2012 and more Alley Bike Club fun and learning.

Do you have a bike gathering dust in the garage? DONATE IT TO THE ALLEY BIKE CLUB TODAY!!!!! Call 612-813-0116 or e-mail jcarl001@mpls.k12.mn.us.


Jeff Carlson, Director
Alley Bike Club
"Viva la bicicleta!!!!"