Trips for Kids begins national expansion

IMBA Trail News
Volume 12, Number 1
March 1999

Youth bicycling group seeks activists to start new groups

Trips for Kids is searching for cyclists interested in starting local Trips for Kids chapters. The 10-year-old, San Francisco Bay Area non-profit organization has taken nearly 4,000 inner-city and low-income kids on rides on mountain bike trails in Marin County, California. Now it plans to help launch other local groups across the United States, and it's especially interested in involving IMBA groups and members in the effort.

According to Trips for Kids Director Marilyn Price, "We want to contact socially conscious cyclists across the country who already have experience in organizing. IMBA members fit that description perfectly. Over the years we've had a number of IMBA people contact us, expressing interest in beginning their own Trips for Kids chapters. Now we feel ready to help them get started."

Trips for Kids has licensed its name and will offer new chapters knowledge gleaned from 10 years of running a rides program. It will provide all chapters with a specialized "How-To" manual answering questions on ride insurance, how to recruit and train volunteers, how to find participants for the rides, how to conduct rides, how to raise funds, and how to get the word out through the media. In addition, the home office will create a national newsletter and will serve as a consultant for new groups.

The goal of this expansion is to reach as many kids as possible. Toward this end, Bicycling magazine has donated ad space to help Trips for Kids generate more new groups. "It just doesn't seem fair that outdoor experiences such as mountain biking aren't available to everyone - especially to kids," says Price. "Our goal has always been to help set that straight a little bit. There's something about bikes and kids and the outdoors. These kids just don't get out of the city. They're living in concrete and some of them face very difficult situations on a daily basis. They've got to be tough. Thirteen-year-olds act like they're 18. But they come on our trips and they start smiling and skipping rocks. It's great to see kids be kids again."

Price also has hopes for the long-term benefits of Trips for Kids rides. "Once they make it up a hill, I know they've learned something. As one boy said after a ride, 'I learned that if I stick with it, I can make it to the top.' If he can transfer that experience to other areas of his life, we've accomplished a lot."

For more info, call Marilyn Price at 415/381-2941 or 415/458-2986. Contact Trips for Kids at 138 Sunnyside, Mill Valley, CA 94941; e-mail is .

A Trips For Kids outing in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Marin County, Callifornia