Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Around Town Humana Awards $100,000 Grant to Halcyon and Oasis Center's Bike Workshop
Posted by Steve Haruch on Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 12:00 PM
The Workshop gives at-risk kids a chance to learn how to build and repair a bicycle, sends them home with their own ride and encourages them to pass their new skills on to others in their communities. I talked to Halcyon owner Elise Tyler and Workshop founder Daniel Furbish for this year's Innovations Issue of the Scene, and Furbish talked about the positive impact the program was already having, in just over a year of existence: "We have run into workshop graduates on several occasions who have told us that they helped fix their little sister's flat tire, or tightened a friend's stem when it got loose. What makes this special is that their average age is 13, and they are taking on the role of a teacher/mentor."
At the time, Furbish and Tyler said they were hoping to eventually start a mobile version of the Workshop that could travel to libraries or community centers, and further the program's reach. With the grant money, this will finally be possible — as will much-needed repairs to the Workshop space itself, which currently lacks a bathroom or adequate heating/cooling.
The Bike Workshop was one of three finalists for the grant, and as Tyler puts it gleefully on the Halcyon website: "We knew that if, by some amazing chance, we won this grant, that our program would be forever changed!"
If you want to see what earned that amazing chance, check out a video about the Workshop, produced by Molly Secours, after the jump.
Notes: The Oasis Center's Hal Cato and Rodger Dinwiddie were the Scene's 2009 Nashvillians of the Year, and Halcyon Bike Shop was a writer's pick in this year's Best of Nashville.
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