Bikes and Community Gardens
InCommons Collaboration Challenge
Bikes and Community Gardens
Sibley Bike Depot and Youth Farm and Market work together to empower youth to lead us in creating sustainable, local, human-powered economies in an effort to organize against ecological degradation, economic injustice, and social disconnection.
As a non-profit community bike shop, Sibley Bike Depot empowers low-income youth with skills in bike maintenance, provides paid apprentice mechanic opportunities, and offers access to free bicycles through work-trade. Youth Farm and Market Project builds youth leaders and teaches healthy, sustainable, active living through planting, growing, preparing, and selling fresh, local, organic food.
The local, organic food movement and the sustainable transportation movement share similar values and visions of healthy local economies, livable cities, connectivity to the natural world, and reliance on the power of the human body for food and transportation.
With support from Sibley Bike Depot, Youth Farm coordinates a biking group in their summer gardening program, where youth go on group bike rides to their community garden plots and transport harvested produce to market via bicycle! Sibley Bike Depot provides at least 25 bicycles for program participants each year at Youth Farm and Market's 3 community sites. Youth Farm always provides Sibley with fresh, locally grown produce for volunteers during harvest time, and we come together and celebrate during Harvest Festival each year to celebrate shared visions of fresh local food and sustainable, human-powered transportation. Sibley and Youth Farm hope to expand this partnership.
About You
About You
First Name
Jason
Last Name
Tanzman
Country
United States, MN, Hennepin County
About Your Organization
Organization
Sibley Bike Depot
Organization Website
Organization Phone
651-222-2080
Organization Address
712 University Avenue West
Organization Country
United States, MN, Ramsey County
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Your Story
Collaboration Title
Bikes and Community Gardens
Country your work focuses on
United States, MN, Ramsey County
Describe your locally-based collaboration and the problem it sought to address
Sibley Bike Depot and Youth Farm and Market work together to empower youth to lead us in creating sustainable, local, human-powered economies in an effort to organize against ecological degradation, economic injustice, and social disconnection.
As a non-profit community bike shop, Sibley Bike Depot empowers low-income youth with skills in bike maintenance, provides paid apprentice mechanic opportunities, and offers access to free bicycles through work-trade. Youth Farm and Market Project builds youth leaders and teaches healthy, sustainable, active living through planting, growing, preparing, and selling fresh, local, organic food.
The local, organic food movement and the sustainable transportation movement share similar values and visions of healthy local economies, livable cities, connectivity to the natural world, and reliance on the power of the human body for food and transportation.
With support from Sibley Bike Depot, Youth Farm coordinates a biking group in their summer gardening program, where youth go on group bike rides to their community garden plots and transport harvested produce to market via bicycle! Sibley Bike Depot provides at least 25 bicycles for program participants each year at Youth Farm and Market's 3 community sites. Youth Farm always provides Sibley with fresh, locally grown produce for volunteers during harvest time, and we come together and celebrate during Harvest Festival each year to celebrate shared visions of fresh local food and sustainable, human-powered transportation. Sibley and Youth Farm hope to expand this partnership.
Tell us about the community in which this collaboration took place
Sibley Bike Depot is located in the vibrant, diverse immigrant community of Frogtown/old Rondo, also St. Paul's largest African American community. Youth Farm and Market has gardens in low-income communities/communities of color in South Minneapolis (Lyndale and Powderhorn Park) as well as the West Side of St. Paul, where programs engage primarily Latino youth.
Issue Selector
n/a
Partnership
Who was involved in co-creating or implementing your collaboration (other organizations, leaders, community members, etc.)?
The partnership between Sibley Bike Depot and Youth Farm and Market grew out of shared visions of sustainable living and shared relationships amongst community activists and organizers working to build a grassroots movement for food and transportation justice. The partnership excels through strong personal relationships between lead staff and Board and through enthusiastic support from volunteers
To what extent does your collaboration involve partnerships that are outside or cross traditional organizational or sector boundaries?
At first glance, sustainable transportation and local food appear to be at odds; food must be grown in the country, and bikes only make sense in cities! The partnership between Youth Farm and Sibley transcends this barrier, showing that delicious, organic food can be grown right here in our communities, transported using human powered transportation, using a bike that each youth helped to fix!
Innovation
What makes your locally-based collaboration innovative and unique?
The core uniqueness of this partnership is the coming together of two organizations with deeply shared values and visions yet seemingly divergent programs. Grassroots community bike programs and community gardening both support youth in building leadership skills to promote healthy, active, sustainable living.
Did you take risks in establishing this collaboration? Explain
The risk in building this partnership was that supporters, funders, and youth won't "get it." Will volunteers understand the shared values between local food and biking? Will supporters criticize the organizations for straying from their missions of building local food economies or promoting biking? In both programs, the shared visions of local economies and healthy living shines through.
How did this collaboration differ from the normal way of doing your work?
The complimentary visions and values between these two organizations makes the program innovative, fun, and effective. The partnership draws both organizations into new neighborhoods, with new program participant and volunteers. Youth get to ride their bikes through the city to visit a vibrant community bike shop! Sibley mechanics help to lead group rides and even help to pull weeds.
Impact
How do you know your collaboration has been effective?
When low-income youth leave the fast food and car culture in favor of healthy local food and human-powered transportation and come volunteer at Sibley, we see the payoff of our work. When Youth Farm youth come to the shop bearing fresh produce and volunteers pop cherry tomatoes into their mouths from hands covered in bike grease, we know we've helped people to connect the dots between different consumption habits. When group bike rides to the farmers market fill up with youth and adults, we know people see the shared values of local food and sustainable transportation.
What progress or impact has been made?
Nationally, the organic food economy is the fastest growing sector of the overall food economy. Similarly, biking has grown enormously with rising gas prices and growing awareness of the sobering realities of global warming - such that Minneapolis is now the #1 bike city in the country! We are a small part of a broader movement that is growing and thriving with deep roots and widening base.
Next Steps
How would you go about continuing, expanding, or replicating this collaboration?
With support, Sibley and Youth Farm will strengthen and deepen their partnership. With full funding, Sibley can provide higher quality bikes to each Youth Farm youth participant, and include key accessories (such as lock, rack, and helmet) to ensure safe riding. Instead of borrowing the bike for the summer, each youth will keep the bike after the program concludes. Youth Farm youth will be able to travel to Sibley Bike Depot more often for workshops in bike maintenance and repair, and even help to fix up the bikes they will use!
In addition, Youth Farm and Market will support Sibley Bike Depot in weaving community garden programs into Sibley's Junior Mechanics youth build-a-bike classes. Components will include group rides to visit Youth Farm to learn gardening skills, eat fresh local food at Youth Farm harvest festivals, and visit local farmers markets.
Finally, Sibley Bike Depot would engage local youth in learning bike mechanics skills through fixing up, first, a bike to donate to Youth Farm youth, and then a bike to fix themselves to keep. In this way, youth participating in Sibley's build-a-bike classes learn to help
Describe the current stage of implementation and desired next steps
Sibley and Youth Farm have partnered for three straight years, with fabulous results generated at the programmatic margins by staff and volunteers working extra hard. With full funding, Sibley Bike Depot would be able to teach many many more mechanics and maintenance workshops at each of Youth Farm's three community garden locations. With funding for staff mechanics and youth classes, Sibley would engage local youth in build-a-bike classes to fix up, first, a bike for a Youth Farm youth and then a bike for themselves. This would provide low-income youth the opportunity to give and support other kids, as well as making sure they get the chance to fix up a bike for themselves as well.
Additionally, with funded staff hours for youth programs, Sibley could engage a biking and gardening component of our youth build-a-bike classes, directly utilizing the teaching skills of Youth Farm garden leaders. We would organize group rides to tour community gardens, go on joint rides with Youth Farm youth, and help weed, cultivate, and harvest fresh produce.
With adequate funding, Sibley and Youth Farm would ensure that each bike put into the Youth Farm fleet would be equipped with rack, lights, helmet, and lock, as would each bike fixed up by Sibley's summer youth in the bike and garden program.
| 128 weeks ago Steve Boland said: I've had the chance to work with both of these groups, and their respect for their clients is the unifying characteristic. They value ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > | |
| 133 weeks ago Jason Tanzman updated this Competition Entry. | |
| 134 weeks ago Jason Tanzman submitted this idea. |
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