By Kristie GoForth | Executive Director
As of August 27th, 2025, we are seeing more need than ever for transportation support in our Wisconsin communities. To date, we have distributed 1,627 bicycles since January 1, 2025. 842 bikes were distributed through our Bike to Work Program to older teens, refugees, immigrants and adults facing transportation barriers to employment at a value of $505,200 invested in the community.
Alan, the recipient of our 10,000th bike distributed used his bicycle to get to school because there was no bussing available from his home to his school. He is being raised by his homebound grandmother. One morning, he woke to find his bike had been stolen off his front porch. He walked 5 miles to school that day and told his wrestling coach he would have to drop off the team because he did not have transportation to practice, the meets or to school. His coach called us and that week, we provided Alan with a new Giant bicycle valued at $750, a helmet, a lock, and a set of lights. His bike allowed him to stay in school and on the team. He is now entering his junior year and we are excited to see where his bike takes him next!
96% of our constituents this year were people of color with the majority of recipients in our Bike to Work Program being African Americans through our partnership with the African Center for Community Development.
41% of our constituents this spring and summer were first generation bike owners, meaning no one in their immediate family had ever owned a bicycle before. Due to the increase in these numbers, we decided to lean hard into education moving forward. We introduced our Pedals & Pixels summer program which was comprised of 10 middle school girls from Black Girl Magic Educational Services. Each girl received a free bike, a journal, and a digital camera for a summer workshop of group rides, creative writing lessons, and photography lessons. The program was developed to address two inequities we continue to see in cycling in Wisconsin: gender and racial inequities. The workshop embraced STEAM as bikes are engineering and the creative focus in the arts provided opportunities that may spark a dream for the future. Leadership development was a large part of this program. The workshop culminated with a gallery night where the girls displayed their photographs and artist statements at a local art gallery in Madison,Wisconsin. Each girl spoke to an audience of 100 people sharing their experiences, motivations for their photography, and stories about the program. It was heartwarming, empowering and impactful.
We had hoped to kick off our Guided Rides Series this summer but were unable to secure funding for the program so we will work towards this goal for summer of 2026. One critical component of youth using their bikes and realizing the full mobility of their bikes requires the social component that is missing, having parents or other teens and adults to nurture their ability to navigate their world on a bicycle. Without this kind of support, like our first generation bike owners experience, they are left to ride only on their street with no one to guide them to destinations that lie just outside their neighborhoods. That's where Bikes for Kids Wisconsin steps in, to nurture, develop and provide the guidance and knowledge of our bike infrastructure of dedicated paths that may not be visible from cars or buses.
Our Bike Mechanics Youth Education program has now graduated 48 youth as bike mechanics. We must educate youth on bike repair because when your bike is broken, it is no longer useful. Many of our constituents rely on their bikes to get to school, work, social events, and to make community connections. Our graduates are now a resource to their families, friends, and apartment complexes for bike repair. Nurturing the growth of bike mechanics in the trades is essential for our future workforce and the other 19 bike shops in Madison, Wisconsin. We will kick off our 2025-2026 Bike Mechanics season in September 2025 and will be adding one more public school to the program.
Our impact from July 2024 to June 2025 is as follows:
To learn more about us, please visit our website at BikesForKidsWi.org.
Links:
By Kristie GoForth | Cycles of Opportunity
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