As a manager for Homewood’s GoodSpeed Cycles, Steve Buchtel is no stranger to helping youths just entering the world of bicycles.
“We help a lot of customers who are buying bikes for their kids for the first time,” Buchtel said. “We help a lot of them teach their kids how to ride without training wheels. It’s really the best way to learn.”
He helps them set up bikes without pedals so they can scoot first to get a feel for the balance of a bike before graduating to pedals. He also talks with others at the store about taking their families with young children to school by bike. But Melissa Lawson, principal at nearby Willow School, said many kindergartners haven’t developed that skill.
“Kids come to us with less of the traditional experiences that perhaps we had as children,” Lawson said. “We know we have kids in the building who have never been sledding. We’ve had kids who have never been on a swing. With that in mind, the more that we can offer experiences that are ‘healthy mind, healthy body,’ that’s important to us.”
The staff of GoodSpeed recently stumbled upon a program called All Kids Bike and, seeing an opportunity to aid Willow in that mission, shared it with Homewood School District 153.
“It sounded too good to be true,” Buchtel said. “There’s this nonprofit out there that would supply elementary schools with balance bikes to teach kindergartners to ride bikes. It sounded right up our alley. … We love getting more people riding bikes.”
More Top Picks Patio Fan
The program, part of the Strider Education Foundation out of South Dakota, offers a full curriculum, teacher training, fleet of balance bikes, helmets and support to make sure kindergartners have opportunities to learn the skill in school. Lawson and physical education teacher Jodi Klyn were immediately on board.
“I know personally, just from being a mom, the empowerment it gives to children when they can ride a bike,” Klyn said.
But getting to the point where Willow School is teaching kindergartners how to ride is going to take a little help from the community. The all-in cost is $5,000 to buy what Buchtel called a “turnkey program” that drops right into the school setting. But GoodSpeed is committed to getting the school there with a campaign starting in April to promote the fundraiser, which can be found at https://support.allkidsbike.org/willow-school. GoodSpeed is even planning to help fill the gap with matching funds to make sure Willow reaches its goal.
“I think it’s a great example of the community pulling together,” Lawson said. “They were aware of the program. They knew it would be good for kids, good for the community, so they reached out to the school. I think it’s just another great example of the partnership that exists in Homewood.”
While the program is generally taught in physical education classes, Willow School is planning to try a modified version of the All Kids Bike curriculum as an after-school program starting this fall. With roughly 600 children under the roof of the primary grade center, including nine kindergarten classes, Lawson said they are always “jammed for space.” Sometimes there are 75-100 children in the gymnasium at once, making a bike class in that situation implausible.
“We won’t have an opportunity to service all of our kindergartners at least until we have a better grasp on what it’s going to take,” Lawson said.
Klyn said the idea is to start the fundraising in the spring because no one will be around over the summer. Lawson added that this opportunity would not exist for the school without the All Kids Bike program. No bicycling is currently taught at Willow School.
All Kids Bike is a national program that launched in 2018 with a presence in all 50 states through 515 schools. It uses an eight-lesson curriculum and Strider 14x bikes, which can be converted from balance to pedal bikes.
Bill Jones is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.