Summit High School bike tech program helps send bikes to Honduras to make a global impact

Bikes keep an enormous amount of money of electric power. Athletes use them to make money, other folks use them for leisurely excursions as entertainment and some use them to get their heart charge up, but in impoverished countries bikes do so a lot more. They provide people today with a mode of transportation and an avenue to escape their circumstances.

This semester the Summit Superior School bicycle tech system partnered with a area organization, Summit in Honduras, to refurbish used or frivolously made use of bikes to ship to Honduras for those people in have to have.

The bike tech application has existed for the very last four yrs, but this is the initial 12 months where Tom Lutke’s learners experienced a prospect to get associated with a services undertaking of this magnitude.

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Rob Phipps with Summit in Honduras originally arrived to Lutke with the concept of replicating the bicycle tech method in the Honduran metropolis of Santa Barbara.

Phipps then contacted a community sports shop, Wilderness Sports activities, which a short while ago shut its doors, to get employed bikes for the Summit bicycle tech lessons to correct up.

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“The job was a truly amazing way to give back to the community and provide authentic environment application for the learners,” Lutke stated.

Lutke said some of the bikes that were being fixed were rough. His pupils labored for hours in buy to get them again in performing issue, he claimed.

The class even had a crash program in grant writing. On making use of, Summit Significant Faculty and the bicycle tech course been given the Freeport McMoRan Grant, which went towards getting areas needed to adequately correct the bikes.

In addition to the bikes from Wilderness Athletics, the Summit bicycle tech software also been given bikes from the Dillon Valley East bicycle junkyard, where lots of bikes have been dumped over the several years but nevertheless have great frames.

Throughout this past semester, the Summit bicycle tech method refurbished a total of 24 bikes, and all but 3 of those people bikes will be flown to Honduras with enable from the U.S. Air Force by way of the Denton System.

“In Santa Barbara, we operate with a tech college, an orphanage and a clinic so those people 3 entities are likely to aid us determine have to have, and we will distribute the bikes the moment we get them down there,” Phipps stated.

Phipps is thankful the Air Force offers the Denton Application and that a small nonprofit in Summit County can utilize for it.

“Part of our intention right here is — certainly (the bikes) are going to Honduras — but its about pinpointing want in the county first,” Phipps said. “There are 3 bikes that we diverted to locals that stated they want a bicycle. Our intention is to have this database of what we have, images of the bikes and figure out the neighborhood have to have first and then Honduras.”

The bikes that will be transported to Santa Barbara will present a great will need to the community due to the fact bikes have grown in reputation in the location in recent years. The bikes will also give a dependable variety of transportation for the locals.

“Bikes are impressive. They provide transportation and the skill to address distances you would not be able to or else,” Phipps stated. “Mobility is truly what we are tying to give.”

Summit in Honduras also allows out with the Manos Amigas Clinic’s Wellness Guardian method. The Well being Guardian plan is made up of 38 medically skilled adult men and ladies from 19 distant mountain villages who act equally to to start with responders in the U.S.

With the donation of the Summit Large University fixed bikes, those doing the job with the Wellbeing Guardian software can answer quicker to emergencies in numerous remote Honduran villages by means of bicycle.

The Summit High School bike tech program feels fulfilled by the support undertaking as the learners sense like they are offering back again even though discovering practical capabilities.

“We uncovered how to clear the bikes, just take out the handlebars, bleed brakes and learned all the basic techniques to operate in a bicycle store,” junior Makena Fox said. “It feels wonderful. We experienced the grant revenue, we have the components so all we experienced to do was use our competencies to establish these bikes.”

“There are students that are so very good at doing work with their fingers and have some expertise with resources. Some never, but they get to appear in below and they get to shine,” Lutke reported of the effect of the Summit bike tech application. “I feel that youngsters who discover these style of competencies, they can implement that to so lots of elements of their lives, regardless of whether they go into the trades or have to have to perform on issues at dwelling.”

Phipps and Lutke hope that the partnership among Summit in Honduras and the bike tech plan at Summit Substantial University will carry on to increase about the up coming few many years.

“Next 12 months, I would like to get Tom and a group of his pupils to Honduras and mirror what they are undertaking in this place proper right here at the complex faculty in Santa Barbara,” Phipps stated. “So that when these bikes get down they will acquire them to the complex college and set them again together.”

Lutke said it is essential to thank Freeport McMoRan for the grant dollars for bicycle sections, Wilderness athletics for donating the bikes and Carvers Ski and Bike Rentals, Pioneer Sporting activities and Rebel Athletics for the bicycle packing containers.

His lessons stated they ended up grateful to Phipps and Summit in Honduras for not only shipping the bikes but also for the idea to start off this assistance undertaking.