The Community Bicycle Shop of Omaha offers kids the opportunity to participate in healthy and productive activities. It also gives them access to affordable parts for bike repair and sustainable transportation.

Community Shop
Fixing Bikes and More

Editor’s Note: On April 8, Whole Foods Market, 10020 Regency Circle, will donate 5 percent of the day’s net sales to the Community Bicycle Shop of Omaha.

Neighborhood change is brewing in a red brick building on Omaha’s N. 33rd Street.

The structure, located in the heart of the Gifford Park Neighborhood Association, is the home of the Community Bicycle Shop of Omaha. Its founding “proprietor” is a somewhat unlikely candidate – a college student from Austin, Texas, who’s pursuing his nursing degree at nearby Creighton University.

“Bikes are beautiful,” said Emerick Huber, who currently serves as chair of the shop’s board of directors. “I started out helping kids fix their bikes in my driveway. I knew we really had something when they started showing up at my house to wait for me to get home.”

In 2006 at a community garden youth day event, Huber talked with neighborhood leaders about the possibility of opening a community bike shop - a place where kids could participate in healthy and productive activities while gaining access to affordable parts for bike repair and sustainable transportation.

Gifford Park embraced the concept. A site at 525 N. 33rd St. was secured with a rent structure of $1 per year, teams of students from Central High School and Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart began refurbishing the building, and volunteers from Creighton University’s Community Economic Development Law Clinic helped the group gain nonprofit status and establish its inaugural board.

Today, the shop’s mission is threefold - to create a safe, positive environment for learning the basics of bicycle mechanics, to build community and to promote cycling. Its staff is a diverse group of volunteers ranging from medical students to retirees and everything in between. Its inventory of bikes, tools and parts is a mix of donations and castoffs literally plucked from the streets before they become landfill. And, its impact on its physical environment is not going unnoticed.

“Our vision for the Gifford Park neighborhood is to promote a healthy environment for all, whether you live here or are passing through,” said Chris Foster, a neighborhood leader. “The Bike Shop offers many truly positive and healthy activities that add a positive, healthy street life component to our business district.”

Anyone with a bad tire can get a patch kit for free. For those without bikes, one can be earned by completing a program of six hours of community service and three hours of bicycle-related service. Fresh, healthy food options are set out for kids who stop by for brake maintenance or, more often, a chance to talk. Building mentoring relationships with neighborhood youth via the how-tos of bicycle mechanics is one of the shop’s most important by-products.

“A lot of times it’s not about the bike,” Huber said.  “Some of these kids don’t have anyone to connect with – we’re here to provide emotional as well as mechanical support.”

As the shop prepares for the coming season, its goals for 2008 are refining safety protocols, managing a growing volunteer base and putting the final touches on building improvements. A freshly-painted message on the back side of the shop’s front door – surrounded by the names of its patrons and volunteers - is one of those touches.  It simply reads, “A bicycle is a curious thing: its passenger is its engine.”

The Community Bicycle Shop of Omaha is open Wednesdays from 6 to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m.

For more information, visit www.omahabike.org.