Bright Future After Bike Works for Broughal Student

Broughal Middle School is one the 14 United Way Community Schools, serving over 500 students in Bethlehem. With the help of their Lead and Corporate Partners, Lehigh University and Just Born, Inc., Broughal has 150 students who are engaged in after-school programs, sports and academic clubs. 

Edgar is a 7th grader at the middle school who attended the 'Earn A Bike' program through Community Bike Works (CBW). Community Bike Works is an organization that use bicycles, peer role models and adult mentors to develop and nurture relationships and engage youth. The program is aimed to positively influence participants behavior and outlook about school and life. The Earn A Bike program is supported by the United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley as a positive youth development program and appears to have left an impact with Edgar, who has been attending for three years.

When I spoke with Edgar he shared that he initially joined the program only because he wanted a bike, but continued to participate for two more years because of the friends he made and the support he received from the mentors and volunteers in the program. It was clear that Edgar had formed bonds with the staff and volunteers at Community Bike Works that will last far beyond the experience of building a bike. In addition to these meaningful relationships, Edgar also explained that, “picking out a bike was my favorite part…but I liked when you could sometimes help fix your friend’s bike if you didn't’t need to work on yours that day. I think I could fix a bike if it broke now.” 

Over the course of the Earn A Bike program, students learn about the different tools needed to work with a bike, how to remove wheels, fix chains and adjust other features of the bike. To support the goal of increasing grade level reading, CBW has also worked to incorporate literacy components into the Earn A Bike program and encourages student participants to read every day. The program runs for one hour a day, two days a week for 6 weeks and any hours a student misses of the formal programming can be made up through extra credit assignments. Edgar expressed this sentiment regarding the attendance expectations, “it’s a 12 day program and if you miss any days you have to earn your hours back. I’m a lot more responsible now because I never missed a day in my three years.” 

With Edgar maxing out his time in the program through three years of participation he expressed both satisfaction with his accomplishments and sadness at not being able to join again.  He has channeled this appreciation of the program into encouragement for his friends to join the program. He stated that he shares this sentiment with them when he talks about the program opportunity, “it’s fun, and we can ride together. Plus you can learn how to fix your own bike!” To close our interview Edgar shared that he has already decided to attend his Homework Club more often now that he has completed the Earn A Bike program and has more free time. He also gave this shoutout to his friends, “I hope you guys join Bike Works and have fun without me!”