Waterloo, Ont., youth leader teaching at-risk kids to build bicycles

A residential treatment centre in Waterloo is teaching at-risk youth who are unable to live at home how to repair and build bicycles.

Marty Wilson, a design and technology teacher at the Lutherwood youth residential centre, has set out to teach his students the basic skills behind building and repairing bicycles. The program has been a large success.

Wilson hopes the initiative will get the students interested in the trades, which could later grow into skills that will open doors previously unavailable to his students.

“This is my most successful program,” Wilson told the Waterloo Record. “Bike repair skills are so transferable. It’s been a carrot for a lot of the kids.”

Wilson took his students to a bicycle recycle centre where they were able to pick out old, discarded bikes that had been donated for use by non-profits. The bikes were brought back to the youth centre where Wilson taught the kids to rebuild and repair them, and taught them basic bike safety.

The students will be allowed to keep their bikes when they are able to move home, or out of the youth centre.

Although it’s been a success, the future of the bike repair program is in question. The startup costs were minimal, with the bikes being free and having many tools donated to the centre, but helmets, new parts, wheels and tires add to the cost. In total, the estimated costs are $85 each month per student and there is no funding money for the program. There are about 50 students involved.

There have been donations from the community and a local bike shop donates parts or sells them at cost.

Donors and local bike shops that had helped out were invited to the centre earlier this month to meet the children and see the bicycles.