Teaching kids about bikes, computers and life – 26 Nov 2005 P-D

ometime last year, the wheels started to come off for BicycleWORKS and its sister program, ByteWORKS.

Board members of the nonprofit organization hadn’t gotten grants lined up, and the money was drying up. The piles of paperwork and donated bikes were both in disarray. Some volunteers were fed up, while others were getting burned out.

“It was a total mess,” said Gavin Perry, a member of the board of BWorks, the nonprofit that runs the programs.

It’s been a bumpy ride for the programs ever since BicycleWORKS in the Shaw neighborhood north of Tower Grove Park started in the late 1980s as a place for kids to learn about and work on bikes and get some casual mentoring and life guidance from adult volunteers along the way. Like many organizations that depend heavily or exclusively on volunteers, there have been ups and downs at BWorks as those volunteers have come and gone, bringing different strengths and weaknesses.

Most at the organization agree the lowest point came late last year. But with most of the board replaced and new volunteers and officers in place, there’s also a sense that the place is on an upswing.

“We’re rejuvenated again,” said Perry, 52, whose day job is in the electronics shop at Washington University School of Medicine.

On the BicycleWORKS side of the organization, Patrick Van Der Tuin has taken over things. He’s slowly but surely inflicting organization on the shop at the intersection of Thurman and Shenandoah avenues, where kids from the neighborhood and beyond come to take classes about bicycles, eventually earning their own free bikes from the stockpile of donated bikes that fills the basement. Volunteers clean and fix up the bikes, selling some to generate BWorks’ only current income.

“Patrick’s young and ambitious for the program,” Perry said. “He’s done more good in six months than was done in the previous three years.”

There’s been more stability next door at ByteWORKS, where Ken Walter reigns over a similar program that trains kids how to use computers before eventually sending them off with free, refurbished computers, giving the children vital tools they couldn’t otherwise afford. Walter, 74, a cardiologist retired from St. Louis University, has been with the program about four years. He dropped by one day to donate some computers. He was told they were too old to be of much use — but that he wasn’t.

ByteWORKS has put scores of computers this year into the hands of pupils in the fourth through eighth grades who’ve taken computer skills classes, and there’s a waiting list long enough to warrant another set of classes, Walter said. The program is limited only by the number of volunteers needed to run the classes and prepare donated computers for the kids. Potential volunteers may call at 314-664-0828.

“Plenty of people are willing to drop off computers or bicycles. What we need are people who can give their time,” Perry said.

The bicycles and computers are important to the kids, and they can be important tools to get kids outside and active or help bridge the digital divide that separates those who have computer skills and access from those who don’t. But they’re also bait.

“Those are just props to bring the kids in,” Perry said. “The lures are the bicycles and the computers, but it’s really about the lives of the children.”

The bike shop and computer lab aren’t just about learning bike repair or Internet resources — they are about getting guidance.

That’s why BWorks leaders hope to get their defunct Brains Barn program up and running again. That program gave kids a place to get help with their homework or just have fun after school four days a week. It had to be discontinued because it didn’t have enough volunteers.

In his day job as a probation and parole officer for the state of Missouri, ByteWORKS volunteer Keith Jones said he sees people every day without basic computer skills and who are struggling with illiteracy as adults. The kids who go to BicycleWORKS and ByteWORKS might become such people without those programs, he said. “They may wind up where I’m working without something like this,” Jones said. “I work at the back end, so I’m trying to do something to make a difference on the front end.”

WHEEL LIFE – KIDS LEARN RESPECT AND EARN REWARDS AT NONPROFIT BICYCLE AND COMPUTER SHOPS – 1 Dec 2003 P-D

For six days each week, two storefronts on the southwest corner of Shenandoah and Thurman avenues in the Shaw Neighborhood, just north of Tower Grove Park, sit quiet, almost forgotten by local residents.

Patrons who stream in and out of Ryan’s Market, a small Iraqi-owned grocery across the street, barely notice the nondescript two-story structure with apartments on top and two small businesses below.

But for three hours every Saturday over the past eight years, that corner becomes a beehive of activity straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting: boys, girls, adults and machines come together in a modern twist on the old American passion of bicycling.

This is BicycleWORKS, a 12-year-old nonprofit operation where boys and girls come with hopes of earning a free bicycle and something more — a sense of pride and self-esteem.

On the sidewalk in front of the building is Antwian Rhodes, 12, his hat pulled down tight around his ears against the morning cold, his jaw set, as he focuses on repairing the chain of a mountain bicycle. Not far from him is Sean Dye, 15, who has come in search of a new seat for his bike.

A gaggle of boys astride bicycles of varying sizes and types gathers around a tank to fill tires with air and catch up on the week’s news. Nearby, the unofficial resident bicycle expert, Dantrell Henderson, an eighth-grader from just up the street, is there, as he has been for seven years, to help anybody who needs it.

Inside, just past the cracked storefront windows covered with posters and help-wanted signs, Robert Dane, 71, sits amidst a mess of bicycle parts that are hanging from the ceiling or leaning against the wall. He is stripping the spokes out of the back wheel of 10-speed before he sets out to replace the inner tube.

In another room, this one cluttered with even more bicycle parts and bicycles – BMX bikes, freestyle bikes, touring bikes, street bikes, 10-speeds, mountain bikes – Will Robertson, 51, has a smart green 12-speed locked into a work area so he can adjust the back brakes for a paying customer.

Not far from him is an avuncular Mark Allen, 56, the bicycle shop manager, who is trying to juggle requests and questions from clamoring kids and at the same time find an elusive part.

As a business, BicycleWORKS fixes and repairs donated bicycles and then sells them cheap, $10 to $20, said Allen. “If we get a really good one, like one that’s almost new, it might go for $50.”

That’s how the business pays the rent and keeps the lights and heat on. But its real purpose is to teach kids to repair and enjoy bicycles. Anybody who puts in 20 hours gets to pick out any bicycle in the shop, free.

Some, like Dantrell, have worked there so long that they have earned more than one. He figures he has picked up at least six. All but one he gave away to the sister and three female cousins who live with him in the Shaw neighborhood, and to close friends.

The main goal is to teach responsibility, Allen said, and to give the children something to do. They have flat tires, so they want to fix them. And when they get their own bikes, they’re constantly trying to improve them. They want new seats, new handlebars, different wheels.

Working at the shop creates a sense of pride that even parents see.

“Dantrell just loves it,” said his mother, Ann Marie Rhodes, a single parent who works at a Mobil station at Vandeventer and Forest Park. “It makes him feel so good. He’s always saying, ‘Mama I fixed it. Mama, I fixe d it.'”

Kids say it gives them something to do in a neighborhood where there aren’t many organized activities.

“If I wasn’t doing this, I’d probably be just sitting in the house and doing nothing,” Sean Dye, 14, said. “This is a lot better than that.”

Next door to BicycleWORKS is a sister start-up called ByteWORKS. The program was started eight years ago by Gavin Perry, a research engineer at Washington University, and Fred Kratke, a computer specialist, at the request of kids at BicycleWORKS.

“A lot of kids already had bicycles, and they wanted something else to do,” Perry said. “So, they asked us to start a computer program.”

It provides free training, after which students can earn a free refurbished computer and up to a year of free Internet service.

ByteWORKS is now headed by Dr. Kenneth Walter, a retired St. Louis University cardiologist, who got hooked three years ago when he came by to donate two computers and agreed to do some volunteer work.

He now teaches classes on Saturday.

“I do it because without something like this, most of these kids will never get a computer,” Walter, 72, said.

On Saturday, he stood in front of a half-dozen second- and third-graders – some accompanied by their parents or grandparents – and used the human body as an analogy for how a computer works.

“This is the computer’s brain,” he said, holding up a central processing unit, “and just like our brain, it tells other parts of the body what to do.”

The computer program is having an impact on narrowing the digital divide between low-income and other students, said Denise Blanchard, the program’s executive director. A study by Washington University found that of 20 high school students who had gone through the program while in middle or elementary school, 16 use their computers on a daily basis.

And other family members also were using the computers, she said.

Unlike most nonprofits, BicycleWORKS and ByteWORKS don’t particularly need money, Blanchard said.

What they do need desperately are other volunteers.

“We’ve got computers, and we’ve got bicycles,” she said. “What we need are people.”

NONPROFITS NEED MORE THAN GOOD INTENTIONS – 14 Jul 1999 P-D

Be willing to experiment

BicycleWORKS is a small non-profit in the Shaw neighborhood that provides opportunities for youth to realize their potential and learn entrepreneurial skills — partly by fixing bikes. Executive Director Cindy Brown said they know the value of experimenting with new programs.

“We learned it takes a whole team and you have to start local. We were shipping bikes to Honduras, but you just can’t do that until you have all of the bikes fixed in the neighborhood.” Instead, BicycleWORKS decided that successful entrepreneurial skills included more than learning how to fix bikes. As a result, BicycleWORKS began its Earn-A-Computer program that allows children the opportunity to learn valuable computer skills. Upon completion of the program, children earn a computer and various accessories. Cindy Brown says that the Earn-A-Computer more successfully prepares children for the 20th century workforce.

In short, the days of the comfortably subsidized nonprofit are over. More non-profits than ever are competing for resources.

By clearly defining its mission, focusing on the customer, partnering with additional organizations, and experimenting with new ideas and programs, a non-profit can remain healthy well into the next millennium.

SHOW OF SUPPORT IN SHAW AREA – 150 RALLY FOR WOUNDED DIRECTOR OF YOUTH BICYCLE PROGRAM – 28 Mar 1994 P-D

Aromas from burning incense and a nearby barbecue mingled Sunday as about 150 residents of the Shaw neighborhood gathered at a rally to show their support for Roy Bohn and the work he does as director of BicycleWORKS.

Bohn, 47, was shot by an unidentified teen-age gunman Wednesday night while escorting home a volunteer in his bike program. On Sunday, Bohn remained in an area hospital, although his condition has improved, friends said.

At BicycleWORKS, neighborhood children ages 9 to 14 learn to assemble and repair bicycles and earn one in the process. Bohn takes no salary from the program and pays much of the expenses himself.

Organizers held the rally in front of Bohn’s storefront shop at the corner of Shenandoah and Thurman avenues. The Rev. Moses Berry, an Eastern Orthodox priest at Christ the Good Shepherd Church just across from the bicycle shop, read a statement from Bohn in which Bohn asked for understanding against his attackers.

The statement said that a “lock ’em up” attitude against young offenders “makes as much sense as dealing with cancer by building more cemeteries.”

Stephen Conway, alderman from the 8th Ward and a friend of Bohn, said it was “a paradox” that Bohn was shot by a teen-age gunman because he had done so much to help youths.

Organizers hope to raise money to pay medical expenses for Bohn, who has no health insurance. But supporters said Bohn would most appreciate help in getting his youth programs expanded to other areas of the city.

“Funding the program, not only here but all over, that’s what’s needed,” said Faye Halfar, a volunteer who works closely with Bohn. She said Bohn turns away hundreds of youths in his program because he doesn’t have the money to help all of them.

Residents of Shaw also held the rally to show that crime won’t be tolerated in the neighborhood. Berry said he felt residents also attended the rally to encourage themselves.

“People have a tendency to lose hope when something like this happens,” Berry said. “This sort of support makes people determined to stick it out.”

MAN WHO RUNS BIKE PROGRAM FOR YOUTHS IS SHOT – 25 Mar 1994 P-D

Roy Bohn has spent his spare time for the last six years running a program that provides bicycles and self-esteem for poor children in the Shaw neighborhood.

On Wednesday night, Bohn was walking home a volunteer from the bike program when a teen-age gunman shot and seriously wounded him for no apparent reason, police say.

Bohn and the volunteer were walking with a woman near Cleveland Avenue and 39th Street about 10:30 p.m. when two youths jogged toward them. One of the youths waved a handgun and asked twice, “Do you think this is real?” He then fired the pistol twice, striking Bohn in the left side and right leg. The volunteer was unhurt.

A police officer nearby heard the shots and drove to the scene but was unable to find the youths.

Bohn, 47, was in fair condition Thursday at an area hospital.

Bohn started the BicycleWORKS program out of his garage in 1988 and later moved it into a storefront at Thurman and Shenandoah avenues. He takes no salary from the program and pays much of the expenses himself. At BicycleWORKS, children ages 9-14 learn how to assemble and repair bicycles and earn one in the process. The children can earn credits toward a bike by working in the shop, getting good grades and performing community service.

Stephen Conway, alderman from the 8th Ward and a friend of Bohn, said, “It’s just such a tragic clash that some youth who’s gone awry would do this to Roy, when all his efforts have been focused on disadvantaged and at-risk youth. “

Youths Discover Self-Esteem On A Bicycle Built For Dues – 8 Oct 1992 P-D

THEY’VE TIMED IT to the second, so they know.

Derryl Howard can fix a flat bicycle tire in 2 minutes even. Cornest Hall can do it in 1:50.

But then, Cornest is older and more experienced than his good friend, neighbor, and boxing partner.

Cornest is 12, going on manhood. Derryl is 10.

Just the other day, on one of those amber afternoons created for bike riders, Cornest and Derryl were tending to yet another flat in the storefront shop of BicycleWORKS, at 4069 Shenandoah Avenue in the Shaw neighborhood. It was Cornest’s bike this time, a slime green street machine with a banana seat and knobby white tires.

Cornest had removed the rear wheel and slipped in a tidily mended inner tube, patched a half-dozen times already. Derryl steadied the frame while Cornest muscled the air pump, disregarding the hysterical needle on its pressure gauge.

”I just do it by feel,” Cornest was saying, when . . .

POW-*(-)@#&?sssssss.

The boy in Cornest stormed across his round, dark face too fast for the man in him to catch, a boy full – for an instant – of sullen, explosive anger.

He stared daggers at the orange and black pump, shoulders hunched, head cocked down like a prize fighter.

From behind him, a soothing and ironic voice came on cue.

”And you’re the guy who doesn’t need a pressure gauge?” said Roy Bohn, the man who taught Cornest and Derryl everything they know about bicycles. ”How much pressure would you say is in that tire now?”

Cornest, a man in control again, smiled and let his shoulders go slack.

”About half an ounce,” Cornest said. ”And I just patched it.”

Bohn, 45, runs BicycleWORKS, a youth program he started four years ago out of his garage for neighborhood children, ages 9 to 14. No full-time staff exists, and Bohn gets no salary.

What money there is for tools, helmets, parts, phone bills, insurance and cleaning supplies comes from Bohn’s pocket, donations, a few small grants, the Shaw Neighborhood Association and the St. Margaret Housing Corporation, which donated the storefront shop and basement space for hundreds of old bicycles donated to the project. The shop is open seven hours a week with help from volunteers on evenings and weekends.

On the face of it – the face the children see – the point is to learn how to fix a bicycle and earn one in the process. So far, 18 have. To earn their first used bicycle, children must work 25 hours in the shop, mastering among other things, the keeping of time cards, cleaning a bike, patching a tube, identifying bike parts and basic safety rules. After 50 hours of training, they can trade up for a better bike.

During the school year, good grades can be counted toward earning a bicycle. In the summer, community service is required – cleaning up alleys, tending urban gardens and helping their fellow mechanics. If somebody breaks a rule – riding carelessly, or letting the bicycle fall into dangerous disrepair – the bicycle is impounded.

Such was 11-year-old Tawanda Hall’s fate for letting her brother (”and half the neighborhood,” Bohn adds) borrow her orange two-wheeler with coaster brakes.

”Umm, well, some of the spokes got loose,” Tawanda said. ”And the handlebars are loose, and the seat needs tape, and this light back here needs a bolt, and the bike’s not supposed to shake like this.”

En route to the 21-speed or BMX of their dreams, the children learn a lot about basic work habits, reading and math skills. Some maybe get fired up enough to do better in school, Bohn hopes.

With a background in vocational education, Bohn has seen the problems of factory workers who never learned to read and stumbled through math.

”I know the human side, too, the way you feel when you get labeled as being not very successful,” Bohn said. ”This is not a giveaway program. This is a work incentive program. They get a sense of pride, a sense of belonging to something.

”I feel very strongly about this neighborhood I live in,” Bohn said. ”We have thousands of kids that are looking for something to do, and if we don’t provide constructive activities we are going to pay the price for it.”

The immediate payoff is seeing Cornest and Derryl and Tawanda and all the others speed away down the block on a two-wheeled machine they have sanded, oiled, patched and painted into shape.

Down the block, toward something just coming into view.

Success.