Wednesday, October 20, 2004
3WCBC
I meant to post some more pictures of the Third Ward Community Bike Center, the excellent non-profit run by my friends Seth, Benjy, Katy, and Zach, but unfortunately right as I was about to take those pictures my camera broke. Now I am engaged in trying to get it fixed, which seems will take the camera from Houston, where I am now, to Indiana, where it will be fixed, to New Hampshire, where my dad is, to Salvador, Brazil, where I will soon be. I will count myself lucky if I ever get it back again. In any event, the pictures you would have seen would have looked a lot like the one you do see, except the scene would have contained 15 or 20 teens and pre-teens working on their bikes. I trust in your powers of imagination.
3WCBC is really a great thing, and I don't just say that because the directors let me sleep on their floor. It's a place that teaches bike repair, runs after-school programs, offers tools and expertise, and just generally makes bike ownership and maintenance possible for a community of people mostly too poor to afford cars. There's an earn-a-bike program whereby anyone who wants to can earn used parts by helping out around the shop (literally hundred of people have done this) and once they build a bike for charity, they can build one themselves to keep. There's also a chopper bike class where the older kids weld and customize low-rider bikes. Though mostly poor kids use it, you see all ages and all income brackets. It's a nice thing.
3WCBC is run under the auspices of Project Row Houses, which is another great organization.
3WCBC is really a great thing, and I don't just say that because the directors let me sleep on their floor. It's a place that teaches bike repair, runs after-school programs, offers tools and expertise, and just generally makes bike ownership and maintenance possible for a community of people mostly too poor to afford cars. There's an earn-a-bike program whereby anyone who wants to can earn used parts by helping out around the shop (literally hundred of people have done this) and once they build a bike for charity, they can build one themselves to keep. There's also a chopper bike class where the older kids weld and customize low-rider bikes. Though mostly poor kids use it, you see all ages and all income brackets. It's a nice thing.
3WCBC is run under the auspices of Project Row Houses, which is another great organization.
Friday, October 15, 2004
blah blah blah
