PRESS
It may look like an ordinary house in Binghamton with decorated art, bicycle pedals, bike seats, and bicycle wheels hanging on the fence.
It is far from a house. It is a community bike shop where children in the community will learn how to fix your broken bikes.
“They’re fun. It’s something to tinker with and we all got started tearing stuff apart that we couldn’t put back together,” Victory Bicycle Studio CEO Clark Butcher said.
According to the CEO of Victory Bicycle Studio, this is the first of its kind paid vocational program in the country. Kids ages fourteen and up will go through a six month program, learning how to repair bikes. But that is not all the children will learn.
“These kids and youth and young adults will go through character training, ethical training, and professional development training,” Butcher said.
They will get paid for their work, offered a real job at the end of the program, plus teach youngsters coming into the program the next semester.
For you cyclists, there is something in it for you too.
“You’re gonna be able to give the children an opportunity to look you in the eye and shake your hand and get to know you and understand the bicycle’s issues that you’re having then address it and fix it,” Butcher said.
That experience, Butcher said, is priceless.