A Summer Camp That Teaches And Distributes Bikes - cbs3.com
Jul 22, 2009 12:34 pm US/Eastern PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ― Reporting Dave Huddleston
Brotherly Love: Neighborhood Bike Works
Their mission is to teach a child a skill and give them something they can appreciate, like biking. Not only
do they teach an appreciation for bikes, at the end of summer camp you get a bike!
In University City, just off the Penn campus, sits a big old church. In the basement, not Bibles, but bikes.
This is Neighborhood Bike Works.
"You get to see people doing something they love," said Andy Dyson, who has been executive director of
Neighborhood Bike Works since 1996.
Each year, 350 kids from all over the city come to the program to learn how to work on bikes: taking old
ones, striping them down, then rebuilding them as good as new.
Now the best part -- at the end of the summer camp or after-school program, they get to keep the bikes
free of charge.
They're all donated from different agencies or people like Melissa Kistler, who says it was time to give up
her old bike.
"I'm gonna miss it, but someone else will enjoy it hopefully," said Kistler.
Dyson says Neighborhood Bike Works is more than just biking. It teaches these kids a skill and provides
a chance to meet new people.
"It's really about kids developing themselves -- youth development," said Dyson.
Fourteen-year-old Devon McPherson has developed such a love of biking, he's now on a racing team
competing up and down the East Coast.
"I'm gonna win a race before this racing season is over," said McPherson. "I've got to. It's just keeping me
in good shape, and it keeps me off the streets."
Andy Dyson says that's what Neighborhood Bike Works is about: building skills, self-esteem, and strong
kids.
"As long as things like this are more interesting than negative behaviors, then kids will come," said Dyson.
The program is so popular, the summer program is booked, but they are still taking kids for the afterschool program in the fall.
RELATED LINK:
Neighborhood Bike Works