Lucky To Ride

Programs: The lucky bikes re-cyclery (lbr) - the lbr is a social enterprise whose purpose is to provide access for youth and families to affordable bicycle solutions while training diverse youth with professional skills for working in a bike shop. Lbr is also a community-based bike shop selling used and new bicycles, parts, apparel, and providing full services to under-served communities in denver. In 2017, lbr served as a lab environment for our seven youth@work participants, and also served as a work experience environment for several local school students, many who had special needs. 1,308 used bicycles were kep from landfills by being refurbished and sold in a low income neighborhood.

earn a bike program - the earn a bike program teaches childeren ages 10 and up basic bike maintenance skills and promotes safe, regular cycling in their own urban neighborhoods. We determined that we want to do more than just give away bikes, but in addition equip youth with the ability to keep the bikes operational when maintenance needs occur. Partnering with local youth-serving agencies, eab participants meet for multiple sessions (typically weekly) to learn bicycle maintenance skills starting with the basics and finally working up to more complex concepts to keep their bikes rolling. At the end of the 5-10 session program, students who have completed this program get to keep their bicycle along with a helment and lock. We also introduced a special day long holiday earn a bike in which more youth were able to participate at one time. In 2017, 105 youth participated in our multi session earn a bike programs. Additionally, in 2017 we updated our curriculum to incorporate stem principals.

ride program - tfkdm partners with numerous youth agencies in the denver metro area to provide fun-filled, day long, and after-school mountain bike and urban outings for small groups of children ages 10 and up. The trips are led by our experienced ride leaders who, with the help of our dedicated adult volunteers, teach the children basic mountain biking skills and provide positive encouragement throughout the challenging day on the trail. The organization provides the bikes, helmets, water bottles, bags, and technical expertise to safely facilitate a fun-filled day on a bike. In 2017, 612 youth representing 30 different youth serving organizations and agencies participated in our ride program. 30% of those youth were either in an out-of-home placement or involved in mentoring programs designed to keep at-risk youth in school.

youth @ work program - our youth @ work program is designed as a cycling based youth workforce development program designed to provide youth interns positive work experience in a variety of areas. The program seeks to create a welcome and safe space for youth and involve them in a variety of our programs, creating practical work experience and leadership development. Youth gain customer service, sales, and bicycle service experience working in our bike shop retail environment, and develop leadership experience by helping lead other youth in our ride program and earn a bike program. In 2017, 9 youth were put on our payroll as summer interns. We partnered with local public schools to provide work study and work experience opportunities during school hours for 4 youth with social and developmental needs.