Wish for Wheels bike build at Columbine Elementary, Thursday, November 5.
We are building 44 new bikes for the second graders at Columbine Elementary, then helping them learn to ride. We need at least 22 volunteers from noon to 2:30, riders, coaches and parents all welcome. Please sign up by Thursday, October 22.
Racing wraps up at State in late October, and this is a chance to get the team back together a couple of weeks later to do something good for some younger riders. On Thursday, November 5, we are building new bikes for every second grader at Columbine Elementary in Boulder, then spending an hour helping them learn to ride.
Sign up to volunteer · by Thursday, October 22
What it is
Wish for Wheels is a nonprofit that works with Title 1 elementary schools to give every second grader a new bike, a helmet and a lock. Columbine has 44 second graders, and a Boulder High MTB family has arranged the event and is funding the bikes. All we need to bring is people.
The first hour is building the bikes. After that, each of us works with the kids to get their seats set to the right height and show them how their new bike works. Some of them already ride, and some have never been on a bike before, so patience counts for a lot more than wrenching skill.
Wish for Wheels say these are some of their best events, because second graders think high schoolers are celebrities. It also lets a group of seven-year-olds see that riding bikes with your friends is something you can keep doing all the way through high school. The Golden High School team did one of these earlier this year, and Jeffco Schools wrote it up if you want a sense of the day.
The schedule
Where: Columbine Elementary, 3130 Repplier Drive, Boulder
- 12:15pm arrive and check in
- 12:30 to 1:30pm build the bikes
- 1:30 to 2:25pm fit and ride with the second graders, in two groups (1:30 to 1:55, then 2:00 to 2:25)
It is a school day, so riders will need to sign out of their afternoon classes.
Who we need
We need at least 22 volunteers, and more is better. Two dozen people make the build go quickly, and the hour with the kids works best with close to one of us for every two second graders. Riders, coaches and parents are all welcome, and you do not need to know your way around a bike to be useful.
Please sign up by Thursday, October 22. That gives the organizers two weeks to find more help if we come up short.
See you at Columbine.