Needs
1. May is Bike Month is the largest month long celebration of cycling and SABA hosts it for 6 counties! We have close to 100 events scheduled for May and all of them center ditching your car keys for a bike ride for short trips around town. MIBM is about building healthier communities. By encouraging people to replace car trips with bike rides, we can make a lasting impact on both individual well- being and the environment. We need additional resources to help purchase bike bells, lights and helmets for giveaways to people who attend events and who need the gear for safe riding or for their youngster.
2. Community Bike Shop: In 2024 we launched a partnership with Community Shop Class on Stockton Blvd. to teach young adults the basics of bike repair and e-bike retrofits. The ultimate goal is to launch a bike collective on Stockton Blvd. that will support residents who live in the adjacent neighborhoods. This program is growing, and additional funds will take care of disposable items - tubes, tires, chains, cables etc. We also want to secure a set of tools purchased for the co-hort of young people who complete the program and ultimately run all aspects of the Community Bike Shop. Donations will cover the costs of bike stands and building workstations for the CBS.
3. 50 Bikes for 50 Kids: We launched our Upcycling program in 2020 which matches donated bikes to people who need a bike. To date, we've matched over 400 people who needed a bicycle with one donated by someone who had one to give. Each bicycle is refurbished, and the new owner is provided a set of lights, a helmet and a lock for safety. Just before Christmas, we successfully got 50 bikes matched to 50 students at a middle school with a high proportion of refugees in Sacramento. Our master mechanics rose to the challenge of this project in under 2 weeks time. Our goal is to scale up the program and reach 100 more kids in at least 2 more middle schools.
4. Bike education classes: We get asked weekly if we have bicycle education classes to teach adults how to ride a bike. With more young people ditching their cars and wanting to use a bicycle for daily transportation, we would like them to learn how to ride so they can navigate our streets with confidence. We would like to launch our bike education curriculum, but need resources to pay for our instructors.
5. Portable bikelane sweeper: the City of Sacramento has two small street sweepers that can fit within the protected bikelanes in the central city. These sweepers do not pick up all of the debris in our bikelanes on a regular basis due to the low frequency of sweeping scheduled by public works. A new creation; a portable bikelane sweeper that is hauled by bicycle will take care of the hazards of debris in our bikelanes. We would like to purchase two of these sweepers for sue to help keep Midtown's bikelanes clean.