(From Press Release) – Empower Yolo provides community outreach and educational programs about available resources to promote health, stability, and self-sufficiency for individuals and families. The Bike Campaign (TBC) and Empower Yolo are aligned in their efforts.
The Bike Campaign, a 501(c)(3) sells quality, safety-checked, used bicycles—and other quality biking essentials—through its Bike Garage in Woodland. The volunteer mechanics at the Bike Garage repair bikes, too, and they’re willing to teach you how to repair your bike. And TBC provides Bike Education in the form of Bike Clinics and Private Bicycle Coaching. Last, but not least, the TBC hold and participates in biking events here in Yolo County and, through this website, offers insight into Bike Culture locally and throughout the world.
What better day than Valentine’s Day for The Bike Campaign to present a $1600 Zigo child cargo bike to Empower Yolo? And, along with the Zigo, helmets, locks and bicycle coaching on safe-riding, the best bike routes, and how EmpowerYolo’s clients can use the bike to save money, feel healthier, and be independent.
The Bike Campaign’s contribution, however, begins with Bike Leadership Training, i.e., training Empower Yolo’s staff on how to use the Zigo, so they can, in turn, train their clients.
“The problem is,” said Maria Contreras Tebbutt, Founder and Director of TBC, “we’ve become a car culture. People think they must have a car to get around. But the truth is that cars are expensive and pollute the environment—in the United States, over 700k car owners are more than three months behind on their payments. I want people to wake up and start healing. Children need to be outside. Everyone needs to be outside. And parents especially need it. We need to move our bodies. Statistics show that if people got enough vitamin D, we’d see a 30% drop in health care costs.”
Cars have become status symbols. There is a “my truck is bigger than your truck” attitude that jettisons low-wage earners deeper into poverty. Tebbut said, “Health and well-being should be our status symbols.”
During her presentation, Tebbutt debunked the myth that it’s less safe to ride a bike than it is to drive. Statistically, it’s quite the opposite. Another myth dispelled was that it takes too much time to run daily errands on a bike. “Moms often say, ‘I am too busy,’” said Tebbutt. “But we keep hearing from biking parents that it takes about the same amount of time to run errands…and that it’s a lot more fun.”
“Cars are great big poison-spewing wheelchairs. We all need to get outside and move!” said Tebbutt. And The Bike Campaign is ready to help!
