$3,490 – Teton Valley Community Recycling
The Community Foundation of Teton Valley was honored to award a $3,490 grant to the Teton Valley Community Recycling – Pierre’s Pedal Project to hire a bike mechanic to train local volunteers and students to refurbish and repair bikes. The Community Foundation strongly supports Teton Valley Community Recycling’s efforts to expand the number of bikes being refurbished and distributed to those in need in our community.
The people of the Teton Valley love the outdoors and a major activity here is biking for fun and transportation. In 2021 Teton Valley Community Recycling initiated Pierre’s Pedal Project based on the recognition that there are way too many bikes discarded at the Teton County Transfer Station or sitting unused in garages and backyards that with a little love, can be brought back to life or their parts used to provide life for other bikes. These recovered bikes are being provided to children and adults in the Teton Valley who otherwise, cannot access a bicycle for recreation and transportation.
To date, the project has refurbished over 83 bikes and has around 60 bikes currently in the restoration process. The next step in expanding the Pierre’s Pedal Project program is to teach volunteers and high school and middle school students how to take a discarded bike and rebuild it into a usable and maintainable cycle either for their own use or for others. The result is bike owners with bike repair skills, more bikes being diverted from the county transfer station, and more bikes available to those in need. A professional bike mechanic is needed to provide the training for the volunteers and students.
Pierre’s Pedal Project’s initial focus will be on providing volunteer “bike hacks” with training to refine their bike mechanic skills by providing several evening workshops led by a professional bike mechanic to polish current and future volunteer’s skills increasing the quality of Pierre’s Pedal Project’s work and increasing its capacity to process bikes by training new volunteers. Community Foundation grant funds will be used to employ a professional bike mechanic. Pierre’s Pedal Project will also provide several workshops open to the general community to teach basic bike maintenance skills. By learning to maintain their own bikes, the need of a minor repairs won’t send the bike to the junk pile.
With workshop space secured in the old Driggs Elementary School, proximity to middle and senior high school student volunteers and partnerships with the Teton County Transfer Station, RAD Curbside, along with 2nd ACT and See-N-Save thrift stores to divert bikes to the program, the addition of a professional bike mechanic will be the catalyst to take Pierre’s Pedal Project to its next stage in further developing this successful program.
The Community Foundation commends the important work of Teton Valley Community Recycling and its Pierre’s Pedal Program in diverting bikes from the landfill, developing the bike repair skills of volunteers and local students and sharing refurbished bike those in need.
