Much like many of you have been learning new practices or honing skills, so has St. Louis BWorks. For the past several weeks, we have been adapting and learning what it will take for BWorks to continue our legacy of helping youth in our region for another 30 years. Our volunteers and staff have been working hard, albeit mostly behind the scenes these days, to readjust while continuing to support St. Louis area youth. The adjustments include learning to work and volunteer remotely, creating and implementing online courses, and determining new ways to offer our bicycle-related retail products.
What we’re doing
Programs
We continue to offer our Earn-A-Computer program online so students can learn remotely.
Our bike program is working to release a handful of projects that we hope our students will enjoy. Our first, what we think is fun and educational, project can be found here and involves youth helping redesign closed streets and being eligible for prizes.
We continue to donate bicycles to various other nonprofits to be distributed in the community.
After discussions with other schools and the local health experts, our earliest possible reopening of in-person programs will be mid-July.
Contact for programs: Linda.Tuch@Bworks.org
Contact for donations: Patrick.Van.Der.Tuin@Bworks.org
Volunteering
Physical volunteering in our building will continue to be suspended. We are, however, starting to work with a few volunteers to arrange taking material or tools to volunteer from home. Our big needs on the bicycle side right now are adjusting wheels and bike builds. Please let me know if you’re able help with this in some way. Patrick.Van.Der.Tuin@Bworks.org
Retail
We continue to offer limited retail operations through our website and are attempting to expand this to include bicycle parts. You can reach Steve or Patrick to discuss bicycle sales or Jake (see email addresses below) to discuss what parts you need (or think you need). We will do our best to provide the highest level of support possible.
We understand bicycle purchases during this time can be hard as we are not allowing test rides, but as always, we have staff willing to help from providing extra pictures to specific measurements. Please do contact one of us. At this time, we are offering store credit if, for some reason, the bicycle does not fit you well, or just won’t work for other reasons.
For bicycle sales: info@Bworks.org
For bicycle parts: Jake.Daggett@Bworks.org
Donations
Bicycle donations are still needed! We have placed a bicycle rack in front of our building with a series of cable locks on it. You can simply drop off your bicycle donation(s) at any time and use the included locks to secure your donation. We are also continuing to accept donations at these locations as well.
IF you have multiple computers to donate, we are happy to arrange a bulk curbside pickup; you can email us to discuss this more at info@Bworks.org
What we are NOT doing is opening for walk-in traffic on May 18.
We are taking the CDC guidelines seriously as we care about your health and ours. We will only open our doors to the public when we are confident that we can safely follow best practices outlined by health professionals and not overcrowd or compromise your or our experience in the building.
We cannot wait until we can see and work with you in person again, but we want to remain safe for all involved with our organization. Until then, thank you for your past and current support of St. Louis BWorks. Please stay safe and we will see you when it’s the right thing for all of us.
Patrick Van Der Tuin
Executive Director