In the Spring of 2013, I (Katie Monroe) founded Women Bike PHL, a Bicycle Coalition program to help close the bicycling gender gap in Philadelphia. According to our annual bike counts, only about a third of bicyclists in Philadelphia are women. There are a lot of reasons for this — disproportionate childcare and errand responsibilities, safety issues (both traffic safety and public safety more broadly), persistent sexism in parts of the bicycle community, and more.
But over the past three years, I’ve learned that building community among women cyclists is one of the most powerful strategies to help us all overcome our barriers to riding a bike. That’s what we’ve been doing with Women Bike PHL for three years, and that’s what we need your support to keep doing.
To make Women Bike PHL sustainable, we need dedicated funding for the program. It currently runs mostly on volunteer hours and extra time squeezed out of our already-busy staff. Your donation to Women Bike PHL today will go directly to support a summer intern to keep Women Bike PHL rolling smoothly, and to the basic programming costs associated with running Women Bike PHL: venue rentals, transportation, Women Bike PHL swag to spread the word about our group, etc. Eventually, we plan to grow the program even bigger.
Our first step toward that goal: Women Bike PHL is currently looking to hire an intern — and we want to pay that intern!
That’s why we’re asking you to help us raise the funds to cover that intern’s salary over the coming summer season.
If you have personally experienced the power of the Women Bike PHL community, we’re giving you a chance to pay it forward.
If you believe that getting more women riding bikes makes our city better, this is your chance to help. We need your support to keep this program growing.
A few of my favorite moments from the past three years of Women Bike PHL:
- Breaking the 2,000 member mark in our lively Facebook Page, where moments of community connection and support happen every day
- Our annual Cyclofemme Mother’s Day Ride — BYO mom!
- Dozens of Urban Riding Basics classes in our offices to help new riders gain confidence
- Bike camping trips, rides to explore the new Manayunk Bridge, mountain biking workshops, street harassment forums, bike maintenance workshops, and more!
- The amazing Women Bike PHL Devo team, helping women develop the skills to RACE bikes!
- Countless strategic collaborations — to name a few: Gearing Up, Indego, The Circuit Trails, Girl Scouts of Eastern PA, Neighborhood Bike Works, Fairmount Park Conservancy, and the Association for Public Art
Thanks to the generosity of Di Bruno Bros, for the next two weeks, any donation of $10 or more includes a chance to win a $125 gift certificate and a one hour private shopping experience at the Rittenhouse Square location with ‘the godfather of the cheese cave,’ and third generation owner at Di Bruno Brothers Emilio Mignucci, Women Bike PHL Founder Katie Monroe (that’s me!), and our new Women Bike PHL intern.
Donations of any amount are welcome and will support the sustainability and growth of the Women Bike PHL program at the Bicycle Coalition.
Photo via @uptownro
From day one, I’ve been blown away by what our community is capable of. This campaign is another opportunity for us to come together and accomplish something beautiful — THANK YOU to all who have already believed in and invested so much in this program, and thank you for your support today as we look to the future!
Katie Monroe
Women Bike PHL Founder
PS – Help us FIND our Women Bike PHL summer intern, too! This is a paid opportunity at 10 hours/week. Please apply and share the opportunity widely!